This Week on NOW, with Bill Moyers

NOW with Bill Moyers

Friday, March 14, 2003 at 9pm on PBS

(Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html)


This week on NOW:

* Is there an alternative to war with Iraq? Bill Moyers talks to Jessica Tuchman Matthews, president of the organization proposing alternatives to war.
* Dr. Marc Siegel is fed up with those ads that urge you to 'Ask your doctor' about expensive drugs. He comes to NOW to give us A SECOND OPINION.
* Bill Moyers talks to John Brady Kiesling, the first U.S. diplomat to resign in protest of the impending war with Iraq.
* A Bill Moyers Journal.

***Also, tune in Monday night for WHAT'S NEXT FOR IRAQ: A NOW WITH BILL MOYERS SPECIAL EDITION following a two-hour FRONTLINE Special Report on THE LONG ROAD TO WAR. Details to follow.***


JESSICA TUCHMAN MATHEWS

Bill Moyers interviews Jessica Tuchman Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). It was the CEIP that put forth the idea of coercive inspections - the proposal for a more muscular approach to inspections, including the use of selective force if necessary - as the course to be taken instead of pre-emptive regime change. In her distinctive career, Mathews has served as founder of the World Resources Institute, director of the Office of Global Issues of the National Security Council, director of the Council on Foreign Relations Washington program, deputy to the Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, and editorial board member and columnist of the Washington Post. Dr. Mathews will discuss the impact that a war with Iraq would have on the future of the United Nations, the situation in Iraq and the throughout the Middle East, and the role the U.S. plays within the international community.


A SECOND OPINION

Dr. Marc Siegel, assistant professor of medicine at New York University and practicing internist since 1990, comments on what he sees as a disturbing change in the medical profession in the last five years. Pharmaceutical companies have had most of their restrictions lifted on the way that they can advertise, and there has been a five-fold increase in spending on ads aimed directly at patients. Siegel says, "Drug companies, America's most profitable industry, have inserted themselves as a filter between me and my patients and they're doing it with advertising."


JOHN BRADY KIESLING

Bill Moyers interviews John Brady Kiesling, career diplomat most recently in the post of political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Athens. Kiesling was the first diplomat to resign in protest over U.S. policy toward Iraq. His letter of resignation to Colin Powell garnered worldwide attention, in it Kiesling writes "Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security."


A BILL MOYERS JOURNAL

Bill Moyers pays tribute to Fred Danback, who, along with the Hudson River Fisherman's Association, convinced the U.S. Attorneys' office to take Anaconda, the wire company that was dumping industrial waste into the Hudson River, to court in 1971. Danback risked his livelihood to testify against his employer, resulting in a landmark environmental case.


NOW WITH BILL MOYERS continues online at PBS.org (www.pbs.org/now). Log on to the site to learn more about coercive inspections; view a history of drug advertising; find recent statistics on how the world views America; and read Kiesling's full letter of resignation; check out what's new with the project to clean the Hudson; and more.