captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: the cruel reality of war fought with drones. debate intensifies over the cia mission that killed two western hostages in pakistan. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. also ahead, a somber day for armenia and its people who remember the massacre of millions. a memory of a "monstrous crime" that cannot be forgotten. big data solutions to fight malaria, from satellites to on- the-ground reports, targeting treatment and mapping areas where people are most at risk. >> you actually when a case occurs and when a death occurs

and exactly the location that that is happening in. >> woodruff: plus, the beauty of the universe captured by nasa's largest telescope hubble's 25 years of tracking the stars. and it's friday, mark shields and david brooks are here to analyze the week's news. those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. ♪ >> supporting social

entrepreneurs and their solutions to the worlds most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: police in italy today arrested ten pakistani and afghan nationals with links to al qaeda. they're suspected of plotting attacks on the vatican and in their home countries. the men, including the group's spiritual leader, were taken into custody during early morning raids. eight others were being sought. two of the suspects are said to be former bodyguards for osama bin laden. in sicily two survivors of a migrant smuggling disaster had their first urt appearance.

one allegedly captained the boat that capsized, leading up to 900 deaths. the other is accused of being a crew member. the men are tunisian and syrian. prosecutors said the captain rammed an overloaded trawler into a rescue vessel, touching off the disaster. but defense lawyers said they've got the wrong men. >> ( translated ): at the moment, according to the questions made so far, we only have indications on the height, the skin color and that's it, of the captain and of another member of the crew. but there were another two people with the same skin color, with pale skin. >> woodruff: meanwhile, british and german warships prepared to sail toward libya, as part of stepped-up rescue efforts. greece came under fire from its european creditors at a meeting today in latvia. financial leaders of the 19- country eurozone criticized athens for delaying financial reforms, with a deadline just days away.

>> there are still wide differences to cover and to bridge on substance. we are all aware that time is running out. too much time has been lost in the past two months and it is therefore clear that these discussions need to make significantly more progress. >> woodruff: greece has to provide the list of reforms in order to receive another installment of bailout funds. ceremonies began today to mark the beginning of an iconic battle of world war one, at gallipoli in turkey. it started 100 years ago tomorrow. today, families of soldiers who fought in the british-led invasion gathered alongside world leaders to remember the 130,000 who died in the campaign. britain's prince charles and prince harry were among those on hand. back in this country, baltimore officials said police made serious mistakes in handling a man who died in custody.

freddie gray passed away a week after he was arrested and suffered a severe spinal injury. police commissioner anthony batts spoke this afternoon. >> we know he was not buckled in the transportation wagon as he should have been. no excuses for that period. we know our police employees failed to give him medical attention in a timely manner multiple times. there are still many questions that we don't have the answers to. >> woodruff: officials say they're still trying to determine how gray was injured. comcast officially announced it's dropping a $45 billion bid to buy time-warner cable. the move had faced opposition from the federal communications commission. f.c.c. chairman tom wheeler said in a statement today: the proposed merger would have posed an unacceptable risk to competition and innovation. comcast c.e.o. brian roberts responded in an interview on c.n.b.c.

>> we respect their judgment even if, you know, we didn't get our case made the way we saw it and i do think it's best for us to move on and that's what we're doing today and we do it with, you know, genuine enthusiasm with the momentum of the company. >> woodruff: the deal would have put almost 30% of cable t.v. subscribers, and 55% of broadband subscribers under one corporate roof. and on wall street, stocks managed small gains. the dow jones industrial was up 21 points to close at 18,080. the nasdaq rose 36, and the s- and-p 500 added four. for the week, the dow gained nearly 1.5%, the nasdaq rose 3% and the s-and-p was up almost 2%. still to come on the newshour. the debate over using drones for counterterrorism; remembering the slaughter of up to 1.5 million armenians at the hands of the ottoman turks 100 years ago; fighting malaria with big data;

the hubble telescope's journey to track the stars; campus rape in missoula, montana: jon krakauer discusses his new book; and mark shields and david brooks analyze the week's news. >> woodruff: now, fallout from the killing of two hostages, one american, one italian, in a u.s. drone strike. it touched off new questions today about just how effective, and precise, drone warfare can be in fighting terrorists. it also led to calls for more information on how the hostages died. >> woodruff: for italy's lawmakers, the issue was "topic a", with the foreign minister saying there are still questions about the death of giovanni lo porto. >> ( translated ): i want to assure you that italy will find a way to honor the memory of giovanni.

we will work to acquire all the possible information on the circumstances that led to the tragic error, acknowledged yesterday by president obama. >> woodruff: lo porto and american warren weinstein died in a drone strike in january in northern pakistan. u.s. officials say it took many weeks to confirm they'd been killed. in pakistan today, the foreign ministry said the incident quote: the hostages were killed by a so-called "signature strike." these target suspicious activity, or a "signature," indicating the likely presence of al-qaeda leaders. the u.s. has conducted drone strikes for years across pakistan, afghanistan, iraq syria, yemen and somalia, though they've decreased significantly in more recent times. many of the attacks inside pakistan are "signature strikes" in the semi-autonomous tribal

region of waziristan, along the afghan border. today, president obama suggested revisions could be in order. >> we're going to review what happened. we're going to identify the lessons that can be learned and any improvements and changes that can be made. we're not cavalier about what we do. and we understand the solemn responsibilities that are given to us. >> woodruff: the white house also said it's working to streamline information given to the families of hostages. >> woodruff: for more on signature drone strikes and the controversy surrounding them, we turn to greg miller, national security and intelligence reporter at the washington post. greg miller, welcome. so we've said these drone strikes overall decreased but signature strikes still happening are. they only in pakistan and under what circumstances are they used?

>> they're used in circumstances as you outlined a few minutes ago in which the agency believes it has identified activity associated with al quaida but doesn't necessarily know the identities of those alleged militants. this revelation this week was the clearest indication we've gotten that these signature strikes continue. there's been an expectation that they would diminish substantially as the u.s. troop presence got lower and lower in afghanistan. they were often used as sort of a measure of troop protection to attack gathering militants who looked like they were heading for the border. but the agency still regards this approach or this tactic as an important one. >> is it known how strict the rules are for when and where these are to be used? >> well, i mean, this whole -- the disclosures of this week have brought up questions about the administration's own

policies that it has implemented in the past several years and whether the government and the agency in particular are add hearing to them because one of the fundamental requirements has been a near certainty that no civilians would be harmed in any strike, and here's a case where the agency didn't even know there were two additional people inside this compound it targeted let alone one of them was an american. >> woodruff: it's been reported these strikes overall have been pretty successful at taking out al quaida, but what's not clear is are the civilian casualties. what is known about how many civilian casualties there have been over time? >> right. and this has renewed a lot of pressure on the administration for answers to these kinds of questions. the u.s. government has never issued or disclosed publicly any numbers, whether of the total number of people that are believed to have been killed in drone strikes in pakistan and

yemen, let alone how many are civilians. privately u.s. officials will insist that number is minuscule, maybe one or two percent. so we're often relying on the estimates of independent organizations that use various methods of research to try to assemble this sort of data. it's imperfect, but their numbers tend to be much much larger and typically end up counting hundreds of civilian deaths along with perhaps 3,000 to 4,000 total deaths attributable to drones. >> reporter: greg miller, what did the administration say when they were asked why use drones? why not use conventional warfare? >> i've asked the question and the answer remains as imperfect they are they're vastly superior to other options which include sending troops into places like pakistan or conventional aircraft which are a lot less precise and can't study or track

a target for near as long. >> woodruff: so when the president talks about making changes, making improvements, is there any understanding of what direction that might go in, what that means? >> well there's no obvious direction and some of the people i've talked to think we've reached a point in this program where to tighten it any further would be equivalent to shutting it down that they've reached the limits of the level of risk you can reduce. i think there's probably going to be some consideration over whether signature strikes need to continue. the al quaida threat has been so diminished eradicated, suppressed in pakistan that i believe there's going to be a real argument over whether signature strikes are necessary any longer. >> woodruff: i guess there would be a question about whether drones would be used for other targets, like i.s.i.s. islamic state. greg miller with the parent "the washington post." we thank you. >> thank you.

>> woodruff: throughout much of the world, today was a day of gathering and reflection, as many marked the 100th anniversary of the beginning of mass killings which eventually led to the deaths of more than one million armenians. jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: it was a somber ceremony on a cloudy, gray day in armenia's capital city, yerevan. government officials and foreign dignitaries marked 100 years since the first mass killings by ottoman turks in 1915, during world war one. an eternal flame burned today at the heart of a memorial complex, surrounded by flowers honoring the estimated 1.5 million victims. the leaders of russia and france took part, with president

francois hollande rejecting those who refuse to call it "genocide." >> ( translated ): france fights against nihilism, revisionism the wiping out of evidence, because to ignore or pretend to ignore what happened in history is to repeat the massacres. >> brown: in 1915, armenia was part of the ottoman empire, and was later absorbed into the soviet union. its border with turkey, to the west, remains sealed. the turkish government has always denied that what happened a century ago amounted to genocide. just yesterday, president recep tayyip erdogan again rejected the term. >> i've always said that we are ready to open our archives at every meeting i attended. in fact, i'll take it a step further. i say, we're ready to open our military archives. we fear, no worries on this subject. our ancestors did not persecute. >> brown: the turks today upbraided russian president vladimir putin for using the

word. and last week, they recalled their ambassador to the vatican after pope francis referred to it what happened as "the first genocide of the 20th century." there were protests today in istanbul on both sides of the issue. but around the world demonstrators demanded that turkey acknowledge what its ottoman forebears did to armenians. >> ( translated ): i am here to remind that we are here, we didn't die with the others and to be able to grieve, we also need to be recognized to move on. it would allow turkey to move forward if they recognized it and it would allow us to create new relations together. >> brown: thousands rallied in the streets of brussels. along a highway in antelias, lebanon even through downtown los angeles, insisting that what happened 100 years ago be called by its real name. president obama did just that when he initially campaigned for the white house. he has not done so since taking

office, referring instead to "mass atrocities" against armenians. >> brown: some perspective now on history and today: hrach gregorian is an adjunct professor at american and president of the "institute of world affairs," a non profit organization that focuses on conflict analysis, and post- conflict peace-building. and soner cagaptay is the director of the "turkish research program" at the "washington institute for near east policy", he's the author of the recent book "the rise of turkey: the twenty-first century's first muslim power." welcome to both of you. let me start with you hrach gregorian. 1915, i just want to fill in a little bit of the history. the ottoman empire is collapsing. what led specifically to the killing of so many armenians? >> well, i think there was a general feeling that the armenians were not to be trusted and even before that there was a policy of turkification by the

young turks dating back to 2008 and the armenians were -- back to 1908 and the armenians were viewed as a threat to turkish security and there were orders to rid the country of the community. >> brown: for turks this is tied to the end of the ottoman empire and the creation of the modern tookish state? >> precisely. at the end of world war i, the government moved the air mean yuns into eastern turkey to syria to be away from the advancing russian armies. the fear was that the armenians would work with the russian armies. hundreds of thousands of people died, sometimes of famine and disease, but usually because of

kurds that carried out attacks. that's the core of tissue. >> brown: is the extent of the killing disputed tore the intent, the word genocide? >> it's the intent. it's not the extent. the intent was to rid the country of armenians and it wasn't a benign movement. i was under duress and there was killing all along the way killing and rape and pillaging and all kinds of massacres committed. >> brown: and, again, is it a question of semantics over the word genocide? >> a lot of people point at the sheer number of people killed and say that clearly constitutes genocide, that includes many armenians and people outside of turkey. but if you asked the turks what they thought they said while so many people died you don't see the equal of the the smoking gun, the premeditated nature of the

act and therefore the difference between manslaughter and murder that this is really not a case where intent is clear. i think that's an argument many turks believe as we saw earlier. the question is every death is a pain and the turkish government ought to apologize to tar mean yans so we can move forward. >> brown: the turkish government does not dispute the number of armenian victims? >> they debate what the number is. the armenian government has different numbers. but that's not really the issue. it's not the extent of the death, it's how it happened and whether they were premeditated at the crux of the issue. >> brown: what's your reading on why this has stayed in dispute for so long? what are the stakes here? >> i think the stakes are quite substantial for the armenian people. it's a traumatizing event, a defining event and until it's

acknowledged and apologies are rendered, it will remain a defining moment. i think for the turkish government, there are three factors that prevented from acknowledging and apologizing. the first is it's a shameful act and no government wants to admit to it. the second is there is some concerned about reparations and land claims. the third is there are substantial nationalists in turkey that are violently opposed to such acknowledgment. >> brown: how strong are these factors? for example the reparations issue. who's pushing for that? what kind of glams would there be? >> i think it's difficult to know exactly. i think for the majority of armenians now, 100 years hence, some of these claims, particularly the lands are overblown. i don't see armenians living in paris and new york and los angeles wanting to claim

lands in the east. it's similar polk more than anything else. >> reporter: what about from the tookish side? >> these events happened in 1915 when the ottoman empire existed which exists no more. some have difficulty detecting their country to an old empire. even though turkey is out of the direct ottoman empire there is no direct continuity. many people refute that. many turks when you ask how they feel about the death of armenians, they say maybe it happened but you should also remember 40% of turks a country of 77 million people, 40% of parents expelled from the balkans and russia because of religion and brutalized during the process, they can't understand why there's so much attention singularly on the air armenian suffering and not their own suffering. so the narrative has to be for the tookish side also

acknowledging their suffering given millions and millions were brutalized in the hands of russians and the balkan state. >> brown: over 100 years now, do you see changes in the world attitude? you certainly see more world leaders speaking up. do you see possible changes of attitude here? >> well, i think there's a greater propensity to acknowledge this was an act of genocide. pope francis having used that word explicitly i think is very important. the fact is tookish turkish newspapers today, in bold armenian letters, basically said, you know, we must acknowledge this. >> i agree. i think we're moving forward. i think there are positive signs the turkish prime minister impressed remorse for the descendents of the armenians of

the ottoman empire. a turkish newspaper which is as old as the republic itself identified with the very nature of the turkish government or state came up with an armenian headline. there were armenian demonstrators and ceremonies held today. these are things that could not have happened ten or five years ago. we are at the crux of a better term of a relationship of turks and armenians and slow movement but moving forward. >> brown: very interesting living history. hrach gregorian and soner cagaptay. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: the speed and impact of the ebola epidemic highlighted the need for better ways to quickly predict potential outbreaks. researchers believe data can help in their fight other diseases like malaria.

tomorrow is world malaria day, making it a good time to look at the potential. special newshour correspondent spencer michels reports. >> reporter: maps are nothing new, in one form or another they've been around for centuries. these days we use them in our cars, we use them to illustrate the news. now, scientists have found a powerful new way to use maps to attack disease. epidemiologist hugh sturrock is trying to stamp out malaria in parts of africa, and from his campus cubicle at the university of california san francisco, he is trying to make high tech maps of the risk of outbreaks of malaria, maps that will be crucial to effectively fighting the disease, but will be easy to use in the field. >> if we can understand and predict where diseases will occur, then we can target high risk areas. we were motivated to try to build a platform for non experts

to generate risk maps themselves, essentially at the click of a button. >> reporter: worldwide, between 600,000 and a million people, mostly young children, die each year from malaria. the disease is spread by female mosquitoes seeking human blood. health workers need accurate maps showing on-the-ground conditions to know where to spray insecticide and where to stock clinics. sturrock's maps for swaziland in southern africa, show where malaria cases have occurred, plus water conditions temperatures and elevations. until now those facts have not been easy to analyze, even though the data has been collected. >> there are more large scale rainfall patterns and temperature variations that are really only available by using satellite information. we want to bring all that data to the hands of those people in

the village. >> reporter: sturrock's maps rely on data, much of it photos, that have been, and still are collected by nasa satellites circling the globe. but that information, 40 years worth, has languished in government vaults in south dakota. now google earth engine has acquired it, for free, and is working with the university and many others to put it to work. for several years google has been storing data, trillions of measurements, on thousands of computers that it owns. but until recently, and even now, using that data and making sense of it has been difficult. with the power of thousands of google's computers at his fingertips, is combining the satellite pictures with on the ground information, using algorithms. >> an algorithm is nothing more than a recipe. >> reporter: computer scientist rebecca moore manages google earth engine, >> reporter: these scientists

are saying i will look at this kind of satellite imagery, and then i'm gonna overlay where there have been outbreaks of malaria in the past, and where there have been mosquitoes in the past, then mix that altogether into a numerical recipe, and out comes a prediction. >> reporter: those predictions and the maps that produce them point to where there's a need for insecticide-treated bed nets to keep out mosquitoes. that's the goal of nothing but nets, part of the u.n. foundation. elizabeth ivanovich, is global health officer, says that accurate on the ground information is a vital component of any risk map, and in parts of africa, collecting that data has yet to occur. >> a lot of work has gone on in swaziland to get those data systems up to speed so that you actually when a case occurs and when a death occurs and exactly the location that that is happening in. and that's just not the case in many countries in sub-saharan africa, especially countries

with a much higher burden of disease. >> reporter: but it's not just fighting malaria that benefits from satellite data. today, such information has become a hot commodity satellite pictures can provide evidence of environmental problems, and clues to solving them. satellites record ships at sea and the images, plus other data sent by ships, can point to over-fishing and where it is happening. there's dramatic satellite imagery of the growth of urban sprawl in las vegas, and the shrinking of lake mead, its water source that could be used for planning. there are pictures of the it is possible to map cases of it is possible to map cases of

ebola and relate it with the distribution of fruit bats. there's no reason we can't use those techniques and those models and that data in a platform like this to produce an updatable, rolling real time risk map of ebola. mine at archive and turn that into knowledge. >> i'm spencer mike also in mountainview california. >> woodruff: it's a 25-year-old space telescope that's provided an unmatched window to the universe, one that's helped us understand origins of stars nebulas and distant baby galaxies the hubble was launched on the space shuttle on april 25, 1990. it's sent back more than a million observations and amazing images, what have been called "cosmic postcards." the latest was released by nasa yesterday: a cluster of 3,000 stars known as westerlund two.

science correspondent miles o'brien is here with a birthday appreciation. miles, it is the birthday and we're celebrating and yet it wasn't so smooth at the beginning. >> yeah, 25 years we're celebrating, and when it began 25 years, one month from now in may, it was a disaster. how quickly we forget what they call spherical aberration. hubble was essentially mr. mcgoo. it couldn't see well and needed glasses. nasa was tremendously embarrassed by a mirror that was not shaped entirely properly and had fuzzy vision. the 1993 hubble repair mission the first of five mission to upgrade and improve the hubble was such a critical mission. when they were able to put what amounts to eyeglasses on hubble suddenly it could see like we have never seen before into the distant reaches of the universe was started out a laughing

stock. >> we forget that happened. over the years it sent back so many images. what are some that stand out to you as the most significant? >> the top three, pillars of creation. this is iconic in every way. it's made the cover of textbooks and magazines and it's something that on the one hand has great scientific significance because it takes you to basically the nursery for stars. this is how stars are formed and what hubble is doing is, in a time machine kind of way taking us back to the very origins of our universe and showing how it grew up. and this is taking us back to the baby pictures. the other reason i like it is that it was a tremendous way of engaging the general public. people look at this. you don't have to be a scientist to look at this and be struck by its beauty and the connection we have to the universe. >> woodruff: that's not the only one. >> number two, 1994, the newly sharpened vision on hubble

trained on jupiter. a comet broke apart impacted into jupiter 21 times. this one particular is of the g impact which was larger than 600 times the nuclear arsenal of our planet. huge, huge closings which we witnessed in real time, extraordinarily good luck for scientists, an amazing feat. finally in vintage hubble images, but the deep field image in 1995 they took a little tiny piece to have the sky seem lig dark, 1/24 millionth of the guy and did a long -- of the sky and came up with 3,000 objects we'd never seen before most galaxies. you have to askif that little dot in the sky gave us 3,000 objects we'd never seen before, what does that tell you about how large and popular the

universe and ultimately could we really be alone? >> woodruff: miles o'brien, thank you. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: now, the newest addition to the pbs newshour bookshelf. it is an all too familiar story in recent years, college women report sexual assaults and their struggle to find justice. author jon krakauer, best known for "into thin air," takes on this issue in his newest book "missoula: rape and the justice system in a college town." he talked with jeff earlier this week at busboys and poets here in the washington area. >> brown: let me start with the title, was missoula a kind of case study for you standing for a large national problem or a very specific place with its own specific problems? >> well it certainly has its own specific problems but i-- it

stands for the larger problem. missoula is in many ways, it's a beautiful place, but in many ways it's a typical town in fact the rate of sexual assault in missoula is slightly less than the national average, is not some outlier, this is an american town that has a problem that i think is fairly universal. it's a college town and it exemplifies something we need to look at. >> brown: you dissected a series of cases in missoula. give me an example that helps us understand the kind of problems that you see that are sort of endemic to this system? >> many people don't realize that 85% of rapes are done by an acquaintance of the victim. someone often who knows the victim very well. it's not a stranger who breaks into your apartment it's someone you know and trust. the first case i read about in the book was the young woman who went to a party, drank a little too much to drive home but wasn't exceptionally drunk, was offered a couch to sleep on.

she woke up in the wee hours with her best friend. >> brown: who she'd known for a long, long time? >> since first grade. she trusted him more than anyone in the world, raping her. one of the cases i looked at is a gang rape of four football players taking advantage of a woman who was drunk. being raped by someone you trust as much as allison hugh, the woman who has raped by her best friend, that's in many ways more devastating than to be raped by a stranger, research shows this. >> brown: there are instances where things are followed up by authorities and other where they are not. >> missoula became the focus of the department of justice's investigation. and among these 350 cases the d.o.j. looked at, they found that the missoula prosecutors almost never prosecuted a case that involved drugs or alcohol. well, drugs and alcohol are present in almost every rape case. and that's common too because it's so challenging to prosecute rape cases, especially a college town like missoula with a very

good football team and football players are elevated-- they're gods. to get a jury who will convict a football player in a place like that is very difficult. the prosecutors can't get convictions because juries all love the grizzlies so prosecutors become jaded, the police become lazy about investigating sometimes or resign because in missoula even when they get signed confessions, the prosecutors wouldn't prosecute. so it's this vicious circle, this self-fulfilling prophecy and no cases are prosecuted unless they're absolutely slam dunks when there's no question. >> brown: in the end of the book you write a personal note about your own experience of a young woman you knew, but you didn't know she had been raped and she had had a very hard time living with it long after, did that make this a sort of mission for you?

>> this began as a very much personal, i was so ashamed, this woman was like a daughter to me that i was unaware that she was having problems till she ended up in a treatment facility and i was unaware of the trauma. she had been raped in her teens you know ten years earlier and had suffered from that trauma for a consuming decade until finally her life fell apart and she ended up in rehab. >> brown: but what did it mean to you as a reporter, you're going to a different territory and this has gotten a lot of attention. let's face it, there are reports that your book was kind of rushed ahead after what we'd seen at u.v.a. >> the book was delayed because it was supposed to be due in september of 2014 and because i spent more time trying to fact check and polish it i didn't turn it in until january. my critics have looked for ways to discredit me said i didn't do my homework, i was lazy, i phoned it in-- i have never done more fact checking or more meticulous reporting. i was very careful in this book. i certainly interviewed a lot of victims and even rapist agreed

to be interviewed but i relied on documents. i had police report i had a lot of stuff i wasn't supposed to have-- audio recordings of university adjudication's. so this, is no "rolling stone" fiasco this is rock solid evidence. >> brown: do you see any good coming from all the attention the issue has gotten over the last few years? >> absolutely. some brave women started coming forward saying i've got nothing to be ashamed of the guy who raped me should be ashamed. i'm gonna use my name i've suffered enough and there seems to be. and that happens to have molded other women and that seems to be this sort of critical mass that there seems to be-it becomes more openly discussed. at least 80% of rapes in this country are not reported to the police and i sat in this book to understand why. why is it-- what is it like for a victim to-- that makes them so reluctant to go to the authorities. and when you read this book you'll understand why. i mean it's grim. the way they were treated by police, prosecutors their friends and peers in a town like missoula these victims suffered

just an unbelievable abuse and harassment. >> brown: let me ask you finally, what is it that makes you want to write a subject and tackle a book? >> i don't write a book unless it's just got me by the lapels and won't let go, i'm drawn to kind of extreme situations people who take things too far. this is a little different than that. this has that personal connection this was really difficult i really feared and i still fear for how the victims i write about will be treated-- the backlash their going to face front his. to my great surprise alison huget from the get go said i want you to use my real name. but every woman who i wrote about who i interviewed said no i want you to use my real name. i said no i said yeah i think that's great. these are courageous women who agreed to let me use their story. >> woodruff: finally, the analysis of shields and brooks, that's syndicated columnist mark shields and new york times columnist david brooks.

welcome, gentlemen. so the story we started out with tonight, david, that broke yesterday about two hostages killed in a drone strike in pakistan, all sorts of second and third guessing about this. does the obama administration need to re-think or get rid of this drone strike policy? >> i don't think we should re-think it because of. this when you have a drone policy and go to war, friendly fire and accidents and tragedies are endemic in the nature of the fog of the war. there is a train bombingy accidentally americans killed british and south african p.o.w.s in nazi control. it was an accident. these things happen in these sorts of circumstances. the fact that two people were tragic -- two innocents were tragically killed is what we should have expected and what we did expect. war is never perfect. so, you know, i don't think it should be cause for us to reevaluate. i think the fundamental issue

worth reevaluating all the time is the equation between how we're inciting al quaida or inciting others to join i.s.i.s. that's a legitimate issue. i don't know the answer to it but seems like that's the big issue here. the fact a completely foreseeable tragic happened that's endemic in the nature of this business happened doesn't seem to be a cause to re-think. >> woodruff: time to reevaluate, re-think? >> i don't think we've ever reevaluated a thought about drones. this is a perfect eweapon for a 12-year war without niko heernt explanation or conclusion to it. it's a war as the former commander pointed out is this is the only war we fought without a draft and tax cuts. this removes the war. the war is fought only by 1% of americans, suffered by only 1% of americans.

and this takes all the carnage and the killing. is it effective surgical precise? by all those definitions it's a rather remarkable device, but it spares us from ever seeing dead people, from ever seeing the wailing of the orphan, of the widow. and i think the responsible democracy, there has to be debate and accountability and there hasn't been. the president hasn't accepted responsibility as he should. he says there's going to be an investigation. we don't know what it's about. i think there are serious questions about whether, in fact, the kind of deaths and disabilities acknowledged over the use of drones whether it has been an incredible recruitment device for i.s.i.s. and al quaida. >> i would say what are the alternatives? there are four alternatives. one, don't do anything, allow al quaida to have safe haven in pakistan and afghanistan. that's seems hardly a great

option. third is conventional bombing, messier. and the third is special forces. this isn't hollywood, you will send in hundreds of people, not six people. they're scared, massive assaults and seems more casualties. of these horrible options drones seems to be the least bad option. >> i really think this comes back to we've not had a debate about what we are and ought to be doing. if there is a true commitment on the part of the nation, it isn't something that's done like a video game. it should involve the american people, not only in debate but some sense of commitment as to what we're about. there has been no debate on this war. it's just within -- just been turning it over to the president. liberals have to acknowledge under a liberal democratic president that the number of drone attacks increased dramatically and we're becoming reliant upon it and resorted to it. it's become the default means of

the united states military engagement in a very, very difficult area. >> woodruff: well, certainly is a debate at least in the short term and the president saying today he will reevaluate and look at whether any changes can be made. let me turn you to something else closer to home but very much in the news this week, david, and that is the stories yesterday and your newspaper and the "new york times" and other news organizations about the clinton foundation, about money going to the foundation, about a uranium mining company, a canadian company with donations, again the head of the company giving money to the foundation, and then that company needing an okay from the u.s. government for the russians to buy controlling interests. what are we learning here about the clinton foundation and the charities they run? >> it's a bit more egregious than i expected. i thought they were donations and people giving money. but there are probably people

giving money for the nobelist of reasons and some not. there's something to the secretary of state being a part of the foundation and the foundation not recording these funds accurately. the defense is she wasn't directly involved. that's plausible. the fact is you're sitting on the secretary or you're bill clinton running the foundation and somebody's giving you all this money and you know it has government implications and it doesn't ring all sorts of alarm bells? where's the self protection and the self-censorship or the self-thing, no, this is not right? so i'm sort of stunned by it. i'm surprised by it. you know, the paradox right now is for hillary clinton -- for hillary clinton's candidacy is people think she's a strong leader but the latest poll

suggests they don't trust her, she's not honest. they have the two thoughts in their mind at the same time. seems for the clinton family there's a lot of confidence and a lot of governmental talent but we'll have a run of low-level scandals throughout the deal. >> woodruff: is that what you see? >> i think there is two separate memories the democrats have. the golden clinton years. the lowest unemployment rate in the history to have the country for african-americans, latinos, for women. the first balanced budget in 50 years. remarkable. then the transactional part of the clinton administration sort of the darker part, major donations and renting out the lincoln bedroom at the white house, the briefings in the map room at the white house for business people who contributed and meet their regulators and

most of all the mark rich pardon where his wife denecessary who since let it be known she denounced her american citizenship and gone to tax haven gave $200,000 to the democratic party $450,000 to the clinton library and $100,000 to hillary clinton's campaign and in return awe apparently got a pardon for her husband the fugitive fianceeé year who is one to have the sleaziest people on the planet. this is what it evokes. this sense of the money is then a transactional politics and i think it comes now at a time when you've got to be totally transparent and get it out there and amending their filings. i think this is a disspiritted feeling among democrats. enormous respect for her as a leader and her talents but a

question of, my goodness, will we have more of this? >> woodruff: what's it mean for her campaign. >> for the democratic party, look around,? all we've got? whether she's strong or not, don't know what's going to happen. second, raising the email issue. before she had plausible case the e-mails were destroyed because they were nobody's business. each time you get another scandal, oh, that's why she destroyed them because she wanted to hide. this whrinten and she gave a lot of speeches. it's likely this is not one to have the last cases. a book is coming out in a few weeks possibly detailing more of the cases. it will be a subtheme of her campaign. >> bill clinton did get $500,000 for a speech, a lot of money in russia. david goes for half of that. (laughter) >> 70%.

but ronald reagan when he left office went to japan and gave two speeches for $2 million. the difference nancy reagan b wasn't secretary of the state, wasn't running for president of the united states. george w. bush made a lot of money in speeches. that's what makes it unseemly. that's what makes democrats nervous. >> one of the arguments the clinton people are making is they disclosed everything and if they haven't they will get everything out there. >> transparency, at some point, probably the president is going to -- former president clinton is going to be almost grilled explaining what the clinton foundation did. i think it's a time for transparency but it's also a time for accountability here. i think it's going to be to

their advantage. this is april of 2015. if it were labor day of 2016 in which she were the nominee this would really be a serious blow. >> woodruff: what about the transparency. >> the thing they don't know is why people gave them the money. people are giving them millions of dollars. a lot of people are going it for good reasons. others because they want to be near the flame of power. they want to be in the room, say i chatted with bill clinton. but some people are imagining a quid pro quo. i doubt there's an actual one. mitt romney said looked like bribery. there's no evidence of that. but you want to plant the seed and you have an issue before the government and you think this is how government works in other countries and probably works like this in the u.s. too, and therefore i'll plant the seed of good will and get in the room. there's no quid pro quo but it's not great. so people giving money for

different motives some good and some bad. >> one quick thing. $93 million sheldon ableton and wife gave to republicans, the koch brothers are talking about raising 900 million. they have an agenda. make no mistake about it. that's what we're talking about with the dimension of money now in our politics which is very much in the saddle. lindsey graham and hillary clinton's credit are a the only two that are saying we need a constitutional amendment to change it. >> it would be lodgicle to have a business deal to get ratified. >> i take the second quite frankly. >> interesting. >> woodruff: which? i take a business deal rather than somebody making foreign policy for the united states. >> woodruff: all right. less than a minute. i wanted to ask you about the republican field. you've each got less than 30 second to tell me if you see anything settling out among the

many republicans. >> the only thing i've seen this week is that marco rubio is shooting up ward. he's in number one place. he's at 13 and 15. it's basically unformed. he's shooting right up there. >> woodruff: cause and effect. it was a brooks beast, is what it was. the republican field right now is -- there's no leader. it's a leaderless group but they're all secretly praying that the supreme court will declare same-sex marriage legal nationwide so they can get away from the issue. this is a killer issue for them and they would love to be rescued by the john roberts supreme court. >> woodruff: on that note we thank both of you on this friday night in april, mark shields david brooks, thank you. >> woodruff: on the newshour online, auto-makers routinely destroy early car sketches for

fear they'll fall into the wrong hands, but thanks to artists who smuggled their work out of the studios of ford, studebaker, packard and g.m., some of these "bootleg" drawings from the fifties and sixties survive today. on our homepage, we have a photo gallery of some of these stunning designs from detroit's golden era. that's at pbs.org/newshour. and a reminder about some upcoming programs from our pbs colleagues. gwen ifill is preparing for "washington week," which airs later this evening. here's a preview: >> ifill: from pakistan to the gulf of aden; from the senate floor to the 2016 campaign trail; we'll take you on a tour from tragedy to triumph to potential political tradeoff with the reporters covering the stories, later tonight, on "washington week." judy? >> woodruff: then on charlie rose: russell crowe on his directorial debut in "the water diviner" and on pbs newshour weekend this saturday, how israel's water technology could alter middle east relations.

that's tomorrow night on pbs newshour weekend. finally tonight, a correction. last night we shared an item about "shakespeare day." we noted that the bard died on april 23, and that some people also believe he was born on that date. however, we got the birth year wrong: we should have said it was 451 years ago. thanks to some careful listeners who brought it to our attention. we appreciate it and regret the error. and we'll be back, right here on monday with a preview of the upcoming supreme court arguments over gay marriages. that's the newshour for tonight i'm judy woodruff. have a nice weekend, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> this is "bbc world news." >> funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation newman's own foundation, giving all profits from newman's own to charity and pursuing the common good, kovler foundation, and mufg. >> build a solid foundation and you can connect communities and commerce for centuries. that's the strength behind good banking relationships too, which is why at mufg we believe financial partnerships should endure the test of time.