BAGHDAD | During our blogging from Iraq, we've been marking the transformation of a few notable places in Baghdad from 2003 to now.

One symbol of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's extravagances was a zoo the family kept in one of its palaces. Though the palace grounds were badly damaged during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the three lions survived -- discovered by coalition forces in a neglected state. Now they and their offspring are thriving at the Baghdad zoo.

Massive creatures, the nine adult lions weigh more than 700 pounds each.

"They are my children," their handler tells us, and introduces some of them by name with the help of a translator:

Not to be outdone, the camels wander over and preen for the camera in a different part of the zoo:

Senior correspondent Margaret Warner wrapped up her week of Iraq reports on Friday with an in-depth look at the country's vexing electricity challenges. Watch her past reports on the U.S. troop drawdown, security concerns and political stalemate.

Malaria causes about 1 million deaths around the world each year, but not all the medication donated to fight the disease is reaching its intended targets.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- the largest international funder of malaria programs -- is investigating the possible theft and sale of donated malaria medications "in a number of countries," the group's communications director Jon Liden said this week. The United States government is the largest single contributor to the Global Fund, giving about $3.5 billion since 2001.

"There have been anecdotes about stolen drugs as long as there have been donated drugs in Africa," said Liden. "This is not a new thing at all, but we have had some more clear or concrete allegations -- though so far not substantiated -- in the last months that has led us to start a full investigation of these issues."

The Global Fund will not comment on the scale of the ongoing investigation and would not reveal the countries involved.

Liden's remarks came in response to new research published Thursday in the journal Research and Reports in Tropical Medicine that found stolen donated malaria medications for sale in several African countries.

The report, coauthored by Roger Bate of the American Enterprise Institute and two colleagues from Africa Fighting Malaria, looked at 11 cities in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria over a three-year period.

Nearly 900 sample medications were purchased from private pharmacies and 6.5 percent were found to be donated drugs. For artemesinin combination drugs, the most effective medications available for malaria, the percentage was higher; 15 percent were stolen drugs in 2007, and 30 percent in 2010.

Manufacturers package donated drugs differently than those meant for resale and some are specifically marked "Not for Sale," indicating to the researchers that these drugs were stolen somewhere in the distribution chain.

Bate acknowledged that the sample size for the study was small, and that the actual scale of the problem "may be less significant" than the research indicates."What we don't know is the scale, but what I can tell you is it's worse now than it was before [when we started]," Bate said.

He pointed to a USAID audit of the U.S. President's Malaria Initiative in Angola last year that found malaria drugs were "persistently stolen."

"Four major thefts of the malaria drug, Coartem, valued at over $642,000, have occurred under PMI in Angola," the report reads."Critical malaria commodities are not reaching their intended beneficiaries and more Angolans may be unnecessary victims."

Where exactly in the supply chain these medications are being stolen from the ministries of health they were originally donated to, and who is responsible for the theft is unknown, Bate said. He and the other researchers are calling for improved oversight to stem theft and warned that failure to impose better controls could lead to stock-outs of necessary medications at hospitals and clinics.

Liden said the Global Fund is taking steps to address the root cause of malaria drug theft -- that the highest-quality malaria medications can garner high profits in the private sector. Artemesinin combination drugs would now cost between $6 and $10 on the private market in most African countries, but the group is working to reduce that to 40 cents through a new initiative.

"What we have organized through this initiative is to reduce the prices almost 80 percent from the producers and then add money from the Global Fund to make sure the prices become competitive with the older cheaper medications that no longer work," Liden said.

"In that way, we will not only give medications to all those that need it we will take away incentive for this theft."

Editor's Note: For the record, the Gates Foundation, an underwriter of NewsHour global health coverage, has been a contributor to the Global Fund.

In their Friday stop at the Rundown, columnists Mark Shields and David Brooks answered some of your hard-hitting questions submitted via Facebook and Twitter, including ones about President Obama's handling of foreign affairs and the debate over whether to let the Bush tax cuts expire, extend them for everyone or everyone except the wealthiest Americans.

They also shared their experiences in the crowd at last weekend's Glenn Beck rally in Washington and delved into the "Brewer brain freeze" -- the awkward silences and grammatical flub during Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's opening statement of a gubernatorial debate this week.

And cue the "Jaws" theme. Shields heralded news of bull shark encounters near Washington as signs that the Potomac River is getting cleaner, while Brooks remarks that Capitol Hill has always been infested with some sharks.

Follow Hari Sreenivasan on Twitter.
With contributions by Dave Gustafson.

Listen to the Audio

Even after the BP oil spill all but canceled this year's shrimp harvest in the Gulf of Mexico, the 75th Annual Shrimp and Petroleum Festival in Morgan City, Louisiana, is proceeding full-steam ahead.Pride Prevalent, But Wounded at Louisiana Shrimp and Oil Festival

JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally tonight: the latest from the Gulf Coast. BP said today that it successfully removed the blowout preventer that failed to stop the oil spill from the Macondo well. It's been an especially tough summer along the Gulf, and yesterday's platform explosion only added to the fears about a double economic whammy.

But one important tradition lives on this Labor Day weekend. NewsHour correspondent Tom Bearden has our report from Morgan City, Louisiana.

(MUSIC)

TOM BEARDEN: Louisianians have a lot of pride, in their music, their food, their culture. But they have a special pride in their ability to throw a party.

This year marks the 75th annual Morgan City Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, a celebration of the two biggest local industries. It's getting some pretty unusual national and international press attention, in the wake of the BP oil disaster. Putting the two together strikes some outsiders as strange.

But the editor of The Morgan City Daily Review, Steve Shirley, says there's nothing odd about it at all.

STEVE SHIRLEY, editor & publisher, The Daily Review: It's a harvest festival, but it's not just for fishing or seafood. We harvest natural resources. That includes oil, natural gas, shrimp, flounder, snapper. I mean, it goes on and on. It is -- it is a very, very diverse harvest festival. It's -- it's something that everybody can enjoy.

TOM BEARDEN: For weeks, the paper has been cranking out special edition sections about the festival. Not only is it the 75th anniversary; it's also the 150th anniversary of the founding of Morgan City itself. Shirley says the advertising business has been pretty good.

The same can't be said about the shrimp and oil businesses. There is a cloud over the town because both are facing very uncertain futures. Take shrimper Matt Tune, for example. He's pulled the nets from his boat and plans to stay at the dock until October, because one of the best shrimpers he knows came back from a trip the other day with a catch that barely covered his expenses, much less make a profit.

I know you are looking toward October, but what about beyond that? What about next year and the year after?

MATT TUNE, shrimper: I really don't know, sir. I'm trying to just focus on right now. And I am really worried about the next years, because, when Exxon Valdez, you know, it was like 10 years there that nobody was able to fish. But we're hoping and praying that it's not that long for us.

TOM BEARDEN: But what really hurts is that the shrimp people will be eating at the festival didn't come from local waters, because nobody's catching very many shrimp.

MATT TUNE: I hate to see them have to bring shrimp in from the East Coast. We have never had to do that before, even for Hurricane Andrew and other hurricanes. We had to shut down the shrimp festival for Hurricane Andrew, but we still caught our own shrimp. We didn't have to borrow them from somebody else.

TOM BEARDEN: Morgan City has a scrap yard where old oil field equipment is cut up for salvage. People who work in oil here want to make sure today's business doesn't meet the same fate.

Bill New's company makes pressure vessels, large steel tanks that are used offshore and on barges. He has been able to avoid layoffs so far, but he's afraid that the ongoing federally imposed moratorium on deepwater drilling will cause some companies to move their rigs to other countries. At least one rig has left for Egypt, but the administration says the industry's dire predictions of an exodus haven't come true.

BILL NEW, president, New Industries: The biggest thing that concerns me about all this is the long-term implications. These projects in deepwater tend to be very long, multiyear-cycle projects. And we're fairly far down the food chain. We don't get involved until the latter stages of the project.

And if they're not out drilling wells today and making discoveries and doing engineering, a year from now, there's not going to be any work for us to do. And that's my big concern, is -- is how long this moratorium lasts.

TOM BEARDEN: The deepwater drilling moratorium is set to expire in November. A lot of people around here had hoped it would be lifted earlier. Now there is concern about what might happen in the wake of yesterday's production platform fire.

Newspaper editor Steve Shirley:

STEVE SHIRLEY: There is a very real concern right now that it will literally price us or regulate us out of the market and that the drilling rigs will leave, the labor force will leave, and we will be left with a fishing village.

TOM BEARDEN: Which doesn't support a whole lot of people.

STEVE SHIRLEY: It does not. It's a scary prospect, if we can't put our oil patch to work, what is going to be left of South Louisiana, even places like Houston, Texas. It's not just a Morgan City or South Louisiana concern. It's -- it's a United States concern.

TIMOTHY MATTE, mayor of Morgan City, Louisiana: I could tell the beach wasn't as crowded. The restaurants weren't as crowded. And...

TOM BEARDEN: Morgan City Mayor Tim Matte says the town is determined not let any of this put a damper on the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival.

TIMOTHY MATTE: There was that poll done earlier this year that said Louisiana is the happiest state in the nation. And I think that is reflective of our community, too. You know, certainly -- certainly, things like the moratorium cause some concern, but, you know, you get to kind of put some of that aside for a weekend like this and kind of just enjoy each other's company, enjoy the music, enjoy the food.

TOM BEARDEN: Matte and others in Morgan City hope the attention the festival has attracted continues after the rides have stopped, as Louisiana struggles to get back to normal after the oil disaster.

Listen to the Audio

Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks speak with Jim Lehrer about the week's biggest news stories including the latest unemployment report, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski's primary loss, how the political climate will affect the next Senate and the start of new Middle East Peace talks.

JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Mark, we just heard Margaret's -- another of her superb reports, the last of her superb reports from Iraq. And, of course, there was also Middle East peace this week, the end of combat operations in Iraq. Is President Bush -- President Bush -- I will get this right in a moment. President Obama, does he get big points on the international front today -- this week?

MARK SHIELDS: He may get big points, Jim. They don't translate immediately or -- into political advantage at home, where the economy remains the dominant issue. But I...

JIM LEHRER: It just doesn't matter that much?

MARK SHIELDS: It doesn't. I think that the Middle East peace is -- he deserves credit for it. I am cautiously optimistic, probably more cautious than optimistic. But I think there are things going on this time, in part because of the president, in part because of the reality of Mr. Netanyahu is in a far stronger position than Olmert or Barak, Ehud Barak, were in 2008, 2008, at home to sell it.

I think there is an imperative nurtured by both King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt, as well as the other Sunni countries that are interested in containing Iran and the Shia influence. So, I think there are factors here. I mean, it's still a tough slog, but I think it's a positive development.

JIM LEHRER: But does the American people -- do the American people care that much about Middle East peace anymore?

DAVID BROOKS: I think if there was a realistic prospect for some radical improvement, they would care. If there was a prospect that we could somehow diffuse the Iraqi -- the Iranian nuclear threat, they would care, because that really does affect our troops over there.

But I think, realistically, there is really little chance of peace between Israel and Palestine over the next few years. The Israeli public is disillusioned after the withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza. The Palestinians are a little more radicalized, a little more disillusioned with the Israeli leadership.

The Palestinian Authority is relatively weak, doesn't control Gaza at all. And so the fundamentals just aren't there. So, I think most people have that Missouri show-me attitude. And so, right now, the enthusiasm in America and maybe in the Middle East just isn't there. But if there was a breakthrough, I think people would rally around that, because, as we have seen, it really does affect our lives.

JIM LEHRER: But relate that to Mark's point that, in this current environment, all that really matters is the economy and jobs.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes. No, that's absolutely true. I mean, if -- we went through several security elections. So, we shouldn't forget that it can happen. But the normal thing is that it's jobs or the economy or some domestic issue. And that's certainly true when the unemployment rate is 9.6.

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

MARK SHIELDS: One -- just some bright, encouraging -- maybe it doesn't mean anything, but this week, we had Hamas doing its best to sabotage the talks by killing four Israelis in one day and wounding two the next. And it didn't stop the talks.

JIM LEHRER: It didn't work, no.

MARK SHIELDS: No, that's right. And that, to me -- I mean, that, in the past, would have been an excuse...

DAVID BROOKS: I was at a dinner maybe a year-and-a-half ago with -- in Shimon Peres' house with Abu Mazen. And the relationship between those two men could not have been closer.

Just, they are old warriors. They have been through this. And, yet, that doesn't mean peace is happening, because the relationship at the top level really doesn't determine what is going to happen. And that is deep down. And there is no movement there.

JIM LEHRER: What is your specific reading about today's jobs numbers?

DAVID BROOKS: I think it's what we have to expect. A financial crisis is not like a normal recession. If you look at -- Ken Rogoff of Harvard has done this book on observing 800 years of financial crises. And the lesson of that book is that we have very long, slow recoveries. You don't get the quick upturn you get everywhere else. It just drags on.

Now, politically, the challenge is, can we do anything about it? And, for a time, I thought we could. And we threw a lot of stimulus money at it. But I'm sort of out of the mode that we can do anything fundamental about it over the next couple of years.

And what we should be focusing on is getting -- making sure the recovery, when it does come, is a really strong and broad recovery. In other words, don't focus on the short fizzing, trying to gin up the GDP growth next quarter, but say, OK, but, in three years, we're going have a really strong economy with shared responsibility. And that means going back to basics.

JIM LEHRER: But the politics of that are two-year -- it's a two-year politic problem, not a three-year, right?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, David presupposes a national city manager who has got a 10-year contract. I mean, that isn't the way it works. And I think that the -- any leader, at a time like this, at a time of crisis, who doesn't appear to be taking action, and is not acting, does so at his own political peril. I am not sure and confident that there are remedies that are going to -- the president has said time and again there is no silver bullet. There isn't. But I think...

JIM LEHRER: But there is talk that they're going to -- he's going to do something next spring.

MARK SHIELDS: He's going do something, but I think there's a couple of things that are -- that probably ought to be commented on, one, not the least of which, is we had a month ago, last August -- in August, people were talking openly about a double dip. I mean, it was encouraging that we did have...

JIM LEHRER: Double-dip meaning we...

MARK SHIELDS: Double-dip recession.

JIM LEHRER: ... go back and have another recession. Yes.

MARK SHIELDS: We go back. And it was encouraging. The glass is one-third full. Any time you begin the economic news was, it wasn't as bad as expected, rather than it was better than expected...

JIM LEHRER: You mean today's news. Yes.

MARK SHIELDS: ... I mean, it's not exactly a time for celebration. But I think that is not unimportant. And I do think that the reality is that it's -- unemployment is at 9.6 percent, and that is the story.

DAVID BROOKS: But the danger you get with financial crises is, people do try to do something short-term, and they end up creating so much debt or so much other problems or so much inefficiency, they end up making things worse. And you get these -- the debacles, these debt debacles.

Now, the administration is talking about some, I think, responsible things they will probably unveil next week, maybe a payroll tax holiday, maybe some business tax cuts, maybe some infrastructure spending, a lot of little things. But we shouldn't expect that is going to have a huge impact, certainly not this year. Maybe not next year. I think we just have to -- I have just lost a little faith that we have the -- we have the expertise or the capacity to fine-tune an economy in this shape, which we don't really understand.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Christina Romer told...

MARK SHIELDS: Judy.

JIM LEHRER: ... Judy a little while ago that she had some -- putting -- I'm just paraphrasing what she said -- that she wishes the administration had been more aggressive. Now, whatever anybody thought, whether it was aggressive or not aggressive, Republicans have been all over what the White House has done and what the Democrats and Congress have done. So, what -- how do you read that?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, it is an intellectual debate over what to do and what caused the problem. The Romer case is that there is a model, and, if you throw money into it, you will produce jobs. The counterargument, which is made by people like...

JIM LEHRER: In other words, you take federal money, and you spend it for bridges and whatever, it is going to...

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, or, classically, throw it out of airplanes or helicopters or whatever.

JIM LEHRER: Right.

DAVID BROOKS: But, if you pump money in, that will stimulate some activity.

JIM LEHRER: Right.

DAVID BROOKS: And that is a plausible model. The CBO has projections based on that model. The counterargument made by Robert Barro of Harvard, John Taylor of Stanford, and most Republicans is that, psychologically, it doesn't work, because people see the debt coming, and they think, oh, they're going to tax me, so I'm going to play it safe. Or they see the debt rising, and they say, I don't feel more secure. I feel less secure.

And, psychologically, when they feel less secure, businesspeople are less likely to take risks and invest and hire. And so these are the two arguments. And I'm on one side of it, the John Taylor side, but, to be honest, nobody really knows the answer.

JIM LEHRER: And you are kind of on the other side.

MARK SHIELDS: I'm on the other side. I think...

JIM LEHRER: You are on the aggressive side.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes. And I do want to say a shout-out to Christina Romer. I think she's been good. And I think she's about as good a spokesperson for this administration as the administration has. I mean, there is an optimism about her, just an upbeat quality.

But I think that, politically, Jim, what the Democrats have to do right now is, they have to redefine this election. We are in an election right now where all the polls show that the Republicans are ahead. All the available data

that all of us run into every day, the races that are being fought over are Democratic seats. They're not Republican seats. The Democrats are playing defense. The Republicans are playing offense.

And I think where the president has failed politically is to make a case on the economy and, I think, to draw the differences. And it's more than just trying to blame George Bush, whom he called on the phone this week, trying to remind people of that policy.

I think it comes down to, he's got to draw out the distinction on the taxes. The taxes -- the Bush tax cuts are going to expire on December 31 for everybody across the board. And I think he's got to be willing to say, the Republicans are willing to raise everybody's taxes, and put the economy at jeopardy, just to defend tax breaks for the top 1 percent of Americans.

JIM LEHRER: You think that has got to be the most...

MARK SHIELDS: I think he's -- if he does that -- and I just think he's got to recast it. Otherwise, it's parallel skiing, and the Republicans are ahead, and they're going to continue ahead, and they're getting closer to the finish line.

DAVID BROOKS: Republicans welcome that fight. The Republicans...

JIM LEHRER: They welcome -- they would love that.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, they would love any fight about taxes. They are like a tank. They don't necessarily shoot diversely, but when you're in their target zone, they're pretty good. And taxes are their target zone. And their argument is that: Listen, we want to cut everybody's taxes. But if you raise taxes on those top rates, you will be increasing taxes on the majority of small business profits.

And that's the argument they will make, that you can't tax small businesses at higher rates and expect them to hire more. And I'm not sure, politically, how that works out. I will say that we have had several elections, with John Kerry and Al Gore and others, who said, they want to raise taxes -- I want to cut taxes on the top 1 percent. They want to -- they don't want to do that. And the Republicans have done pretty well often in those fights.

JIM LEHRER: Speaking of pure politics, what did you think of the Lisa Murkowski loss in Alaska and the Joe Miller victory?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes. It's a message about aggressiveness. The Republican primary voters want, not only opposition, but really aggressive opposition. They don't want a hint of compromise. They want you to be super-aggressive, not, as they say, get along and go along. And, so, I thought that was the key message, which will have an effect...

JIM LEHRER: Aggressive -- aggressive against -- in attacking Obama, Democrats, whatever?

DAVID BROOKS: Everybody, Democrats, right. So, it will change the tone of the next Senate, more aggression, and it raises the idea of repealing health care.

MARK SHIELDS: By their definition, your political opponent is an enemy. It really is. I mean, it's the Sharron Angle mantra. And it's similar.

JIM LEHRER: That's in Nevada. That's in Nevada, yes.

MARK SHIELDS: They demonized Lisa Murkowski in this race as well.

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

MARK SHIELDS: And, you know, Ronald Reagan was about as formidable an adversary as anybody on the Democratic side would ever want to run into, as principled, conservative. But, at 5:00, he could sit down and have a drink with Tip O'Neill. Under the rules and under the mores of these folks, any cooperation, any civility toward the other side is a sign of collaboration and collusion. And I -- boy, I think that doesn't augur well for our politics, nor this city.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I mean, my whole life was based on what Mark just said, but I have said we should wait and see. In Massachusetts and other places, we have had people who are pretty partisan, but surprise you and sometimes can be nice. And Reagan was plenty tough. But he was nice. Mark's right. And maybe they will be tough and not -- but I -- personally, you know, the Republican Party is not headed in the direction I want to see.

I do think you have to collaborate. And that has become a dirty word. There is no question about that.

JIM LEHRER: OK. Thank you both very much.

MARK SHIELDS: Thank you.

DAVID BROOKS: Thank you.

Listen to the Audio

Power outages are an ongoing frustration for Iraqis. Margaret Warner wraps up her reporting trip to Iraq with a look at how people have learned to deal with a lack of reliable electrical service.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next: Our Margaret Warner wraps up her reporting trip to Iraq, a country facing not only the winding down of a war, but power shortages that have become part of daily life.

MARGARET WARNER: Mofak Mohammed (ph), a 51-year-old father of four, is alone after a day at work. A factory manager nearby lets him tap into its power source a bit during the day, but, at night, he has none.

MAN (through translator): I have a wife and four kids. In this house, we all sleep here on the cold floor, because the heat here is unbearable. So, I sent them away to my relatives' house.

MARGARET WARNER: It's late summertime in Iraq, and the living is anything but easy. With daytime temperatures averaging 120 degrees, Iraqis are stuck with only four to five hours of power a day from the national grid.

The electricity shortage affects every activity of daily life, in the smallest homes or in giant hospitals like this one in Fallujah, which has to rely on its own generators. Pediatrician Dr. Samira Abdul Ghani says the acute power shortage is causing major health problems in her young patients.

DR. SAMIRA ABDUL GHANI, pediatrician: Believe me, there are many cases of heat stroke. There are a lot of cases of dehydration. There are cases of exhaustion, simply because of hot weather, and there's no electricity.

MARGARET WARNER: For smaller businesses, it can be a struggle. Back in Baghdad, Mohammed Kasin carves wooden furniture. It's hot work, but he gets by.

MOHAMMED KASIN, carpenter (through translator): When we have a break at noon, everyone runs home to take a shower, and we drink a lot of water.

MARGARET WARNER: His boss, shop owner Abdul Amir Kakhim (ph), says, before the 2003 invasion, power wasn't a problem. And he's angry that it is one now.

MAN (through translator): Previously, we didn't have to use a generator, but, right after the war, we got one. I blame everyone, the government, the Americans, and the Iraqis.

MARGARET WARNER: Privately, many Iraqis told us they blame corruption for the power shortages, though they wouldn't say it on camera. Public anger over electricity did erupt in protests in several southern cities this summer. Rioters in Nasiriyah were driven back with water cannons. And, in Basra, police fired into the crowd, killing two.

The U.S. government says it has spent $5 billion to upgrade Iraq's electricity grid since the 2003 invasion, and the Iraqi government says it's laid out an additional $6 billion since 2006, all to build new plants and transmission towers and rehab older plants like this one.

The Doura power plant in south Baghdad is supposed to supply one-quarter of the city's electricity. Plant manager Ghazzi Essa gives us a tour of his older unit, dating from the early 1980s. He says it's so worn out that he doesn't dare run it at full capacity.

GHAZZI ESSA, plant manager: And there is so many parts very -- fatigue, and there is leakage.

MARGARET WARNER: Essa knows he's letting his customers down, but he doesn't know what else to do.

GHAZZI ESSA: There's pressure on us, yes, big pressure. It is a very difficult time for us. We are spending 24 hours here. We keep the day and the night here to keep these units and the others in operation. We are here trying our best.

MARGARET WARNER: Actually, Iraq now generates 50 percent more power than it did before the invasion. But, if you live in Baghdad, it doesn't feel that way, because Baghdadis aren't allowed to be the energy hogs they were during the days of Saddam.

The government now distributes energy equally across the country, says Raad al-Haris, the deputy minister of electricity.

RAAD AL-HARIS, Iraqi deputy minister of electricity: Yes, during Saddam regime, there's an order from higher authority that Baghdad should be 20 hours or 22 hours on, and two hours or four hours off. In the governorate, it was vice versa.

MARGARET WARNER: That's out of the rest of the country.

RAAD AL-HARIS: Yes, 20 hours off and four hours only on. That's why, during that regime, when you come to Baghdad, you didn't recognize that there's a problem.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, in fact, the tables have turned. Some other regions, where most of the power is produced, are refusing to send Baghdad its fair share.

That's the new Iraq?

RAAD AL-HARIS: Yes, this is democracy.

(LAUGHTER)

MARGARET WARNER: But the bigger problem, he said, is that energy consumption has soared, doubling in the last seven years.

Shouldn't it have been anticipated that demand was going to soar? Is this a huge failure of planning?

RAAD AL-HARIS: Exactly. There's no good planning. They didn't concentrate, neither the Americans, nor our government, for the electricity.

MARGARET WARNER: The shortages don't keep Iraqis from buying all the latest energy-gobbling items. We found Muhanned Kadim (ph) in Baghdad's Karada district loading up electric appliances for his retail store outside the city.

MAN (through translator): I sell all kinds of air conditioners. Everybody is buying air conditioners now.

MARGARET WARNER: Washing machines, refrigerators and water heaters are also flying off the shelves. A lot of the items are cheap, inefficient goods from Asia that further strain the system. Salesman Raheem Badia says the unreliable national grid has created a huge demand for small personal generators.

RAHEEM BADIA, salesman (through translator): Since the fall of the regime, so many new houses have been built, and they're all using air conditioners. In the past, a house had maybe one. Now it could have three.

MARGARET WARNER: Here's one way Iraqis beat the power shortage. Entrepreneurs buy giant gas-fueled generators like this one, and plop them down on a city street. They will sell electricity to anyone who wants to tap in and pay the price.

The rat's nest of wires, what looks like endless tangles and knots, somehow make their way to customers' homes, like that of Hahlam Ibrahim Ahmed and her extended family. Like many middle-class Iraqis, they cobble together power from the national grid, a neighborhood generator, and a small personal one.

HAHLAM IBRAHIM AHMED, resident of Baghdad (through translator): We have to wait until 1:00 to do anything that requires electricity, like washing clothes. Or if I have to go out and I need a shower, there's no power to dry my hair. So, the situation changes our life completely.

MARGARET WARNER: But they can only afford to buy enough power from the neighborhood generator to cover them from 1:00 p.m. to midnight, and she's had to build her life around that.

What about refrigeration? How do you keep your food fresh?

HAHLAM IBRAHIM AHMED (through translator): We cook just enough for dinner on a daily basis. What's left over, we throw away. Life here is very hard.

MARGARET WARNER: The hard life never seems to end. People fortunate enough to have a personal generator spend literally hours in gas lines, waiting to fill up their car tanks, so they can siphon it out for generator fuel at home.

There are exceptions. The lights never flicker at the open-air ice cream shop we visited last week. The place has been hit twice by terrorist explosions. But the insurance that owner Moustafa Mahmoud Abdullah is most insistent on is what keeps the ice cream cold and the customers happy.

MOUSTAFA MAHMOUD ABDULLAH, businessman (through translator): I have three giant generators, and all the power that you see in this shop comes from those three generators. I never depend on city power, so my generators are running full-time.

MARGARET WARNER: How much does it cost you?

MOUSTAFA MAHMOUD ABDULLAH (through translator): The total cost of running this business on generators alone, to keep all the power that you see, on a monthly basis, is 21 million Iraqi dinars. That's about $20,000 a month.

MARGARET WARNER: That's a lot of ice cream cones. To Iraqis who are eager for the good things in life, but aren't making enough money to go entirely off the grid, the government's response is: Wait. Wait for another two to four years as new plants now being built gradually come online. That's cold comfort for Mofak Mohammed (ph), whose only nighttime relief comes from a cool tile floor.

Listen to the Audio

As part of his ongoing series of reports on Making Sense of financial news, Paul Solman's reports how economic woes aren't just hard on the unemployed. As the recession drags on, many of those who are employed say they're overworked and underpaid.

JIM LEHRER: Now to another part of the labor story. It's about those who have jobs, but are being asked to do ever more.

NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solman reports on the rise of the so-called burned-out worker.

It's part of his ongoing reporting on Making Sense of financial news.

PAUL SOLMAN: By this winter, when the great recession hit the two-year mark, Boston nurse Ann Driscoll's patient load had become truly daunting.

ANN DRISCOLL, nurse: They have taken a lot of nurse's aides away. They have cut the staffing down. They have closed an ICU. And we feel that it's going to lead to bad-quality patient outcomes.

PAUL SOLMAN: In California, flight attendant Ramona Arellano-Snyder also feels overworked and underpaid.

RAMONA ARELLANO-SNYDER, Flight Attendant: We're working more, but we're -- we're not seeing any rewards for that.

PAUL SOLMAN: Ditto for Maryland public defender Emily Livingston.

EMILY LIVINGSTON, assistant public defender, Montgomery County, Maryland: We are doing more with less. We have fewer attorneys right now handling an increasing caseload.

PAUL SOLMAN: And, in Boston, architect Lee Braun has had to do more in fewer hours since his workweek was cut to four days.

LEE BRAUN, architect: It kind of makes you wonder what recovery looks like. I mean, you know, if you're able to do more with less, and you just keep doing that...

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, then employers might be reluctant to start hiring again, and folks both without and with jobs will suffer, too.

At a Mott's plant in Williamson, New York, Shelly Snyder is on strike, in part because she was pressed to work overtime.

SHELLY SNYDER, Mott's worker: I don't think I should be on call or have to work 90 hours a week to make apple sauce. I just think it's crazy.

PAUL SOLMAN: The pressure recalls the worker speedups of the depressed 1930s, famously satirized by Charlie Chaplin in the film "Modern Times," management pushing workers to the edge or well beyond.

The official speedup data aren't in yet on this downturn, but Juliet Schor, author of several books on work, including "Plenitude" and the 1991 bestseller "The Overworked American," says high unemployment with no drop in output means overwork.

JULIET SCHOR, Boston College: We do know that we had massive layoffs. The workers who are left are doing much more work, and so we're seeing a lot of anecdotal evidence of rising stress, burnout, and unmanageable kinds of schedules for people.

PAUL SOLMAN: A burned-out work force, yes, says Bill Driscoll of Robert Half, a staffing firm, that's what workers report.

WILLIAM DRISCOLL, Robert Half: We surveyed 1,400 people across all lines of business in different jobs, and 37 percent said that they were overworked and underpaid. And even four in 10 said that they might want to look for another job, you know, as things start to improve.

PAUL SOLMAN: Take airlines, please. They have cut a sixth of their work force since the economy flatlined, on top of cuts made back in 2001 never restored. Arellano-Snyder flies for a major carrier.

RAMONA ARELLANO-SNYDER: We took a 33 percent pay cut initially, after 9/11. We're working longer hours. We're getting less rest on our layovers. We have fewer flights, which means the flights that we do have are packed, so we have people that are more grumpy because they are on planes that are crowded.

PAUL SOLMAN: JetBlue's Steven Slater is the iconic example, of course. Though lacking footage of his passenger dust-up and subsequent suds-supported slide to freedom, one can only imagine how it actually looked.

CHILD: I love you.

RAMONA ARELLANO-SNYDER: I love you, too.

PAUL SOLMAN: Arellano-Snyder neither approves of the behavior, nor thinks any of this is funny.

RAMONA ARELLANO-SNYDER: I'm just tired. You know, I'm working 10-to-12-hour days. But, a lot of times, you have a delay, and then you end up with even less rest. So, you might get maybe eight hours behind the door, which means you get to your hotel, and you have exactly eight hours before you have to go back to the airport. Well, you have to be at the airport an hour before your flight, so that already cuts it down to seven hours behind the door, and that doesn't include the time it takes you to fall asleep.

You walk in the door, you're supposed to jump in your bed and go right to sleep. That doesn't happen for most people. You're pretty tired when you get up in the morning. And, sometimes, it's hard to even get yourself up in the morning.

PAUL SOLMAN: Given layoffs at his firm, architect Lee Braun is grateful for a job to support his family, even though he too is working harder.

LEE BRAUN: You feel like you have got to keep your job, so you have really got to do your work well, and you got to work hard and, you know, do what it takes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

LEE BRAUN: I think, from an employer's perspective, that's probably a pretty good thing.

(LAUGHTER)

PAUL SOLMAN: And a good thing, too, for that old ideal of economics, productivity, turning out more stuff per person.

Juliet Schor has analyzed data from time-motion studies of the sort that began in the 1900s. This one tested ways to save time in the stamping of order forms.

JULIET SCHOR: There's almost no data on this topic, but I happened to have found an amazing data set. It shows, when the duration of unemployment goes up, people work harder and faster in the workplace.

PAUL SOLMAN: During the current job drought, says economist Andrew Sum, productivity has jumped a stunning 7 percent.

ANDREW SUM, economist, Northeastern University: This time around, we had one of the highest, you know, 15-, 18-month gains in productivity since the end of World War II.

Yet, at the same time, there is no evidence that the average worker has received an increase in their real weekly wage as a result of that productivity gain. For the most part, the vast majority of these gains went in the form of increased before-tax corporate profits.

PAUL SOLMAN: Corporate profits have, in fact, been quite high.

ANDREW SUM: Extraordinarily high in the last 18 months.

PAUL SOLMAN: At Mott's, hourly workers are on strike, since their profitable parent company, Dr. Pepper Snapple, cut their pay and benefits.

Again, line worker Shelly Snyder:

SHELLY SNYDER: If I come here and I give you my life, and I'm here and I work and I do my job and I make a good product and I make you money, why should I have to make less?

PAUL SOLMAN: But at Dr. Pepper Snapple, Bob Callan says the company is no different than any other facing a tough competitive environment.

ROBERT CALLAN, Dr. Pepper Snapple: We're focused on making sure that that facility can compete in the marketplace, and that we have -- we convert -- we Williamson into an efficient operation that -- that has a competitive wage structure. That is our focus.

PAUL SOLMAN: For workers and those they serve, though, there are real costs to doing more with less.

In Maryland, attrition has forced fewer public defenders, already a stereotype of overwork, to handle more cases than ever. In the last two years, Emily Livingston's average caseload grew from 12 to 20.

EMILY LIVINGSTON: It is sometimes physically difficult to handle that many cases in a single day. Sometimes, we will be in front of the judge in one courtroom handling a case, and we will be told that we're needed in the other courtroom, that our cases need to be resolved in the other courtroom. So, it's a juggling act, definitely, now more than ever.

PAUL SOLMAN: Livingston is hoarse from bronchitis that just won't quit. She feels she shouldn't take time off, though.

EMILY LIVINGSTON: If you have got, you know, clients who are in lockup, you want to come. You want to make sure that you're there for that client to get those cases resolved. We don't want to let them down, so we're -- we're working harder to make sure that we don't.

PAUL SOLMAN: Working harder in speeded-up America. And, with an unexpected productivity decline in the last quarter, there's now even data to suggest that American workers, though mostly in services these days, may be, like workers of the past, reaching their limit.

Listen to the Audio

The outgoing head of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, speaks with Judy Woodruff on her last day at the White House about the administration's efforts to revive the economy, why she said the stimulus was a good idea and why the government could have done more earlier in the economic crisis.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We have more on the jobs report coming up in an interview with White House economic adviser Christina Romer.

Today's jobs report was the latest evidence just how slowly the U.S. economy is recovering. The chair of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, who has helped shape the administration's approach to the recession and the financial crisis, announced recently she was stepping down.I spoke with her a short time ago on this, her last day at the White House.

Dr. Romer, thank you for talking with us.

CHRISTINA ROMER, chairwoman, Council of Economic Advisers: It's great to be with you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Today's jobs report, there was some good news, more jobs created in the private sector, but not enough to make a real dent in the overall unemployment picture.

What is it going to take to get more jobs created?

CHRISTINA ROMER: So, I think your characterization is exactly right, that we did see the eighth consecutive month of private sector job growth.

And 67,000 is certainly better than most analysts had been anticipating. But it certainly is not the kind of robust job growth that I know the president wants. He talked in the Rose Garden today about how we need to get that number higher, so that the unemployment rate comes down.

You know, what the president has been talking about, and certainly looking at, is a range of targeted measures. No one is talking about a second stimulus. They're talking about actions that can address some of the particular headwinds that we face. So, we know, for example, that small businesses often tell us they would like to create jobs, if only they could get the credit they need to do some investments and get their business growing.

And so he made a plea today for Congress to pass the small business jobs and tax cut and lending bill. And that is certainly going to be something that's important, but there are a range of other actions that we think could help to make those numbers -- those numbers stronger.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, in fact, it was reported today the president is considering a temporary payroll tax holiday. He's looking at other business tax, research and development measures. Do you think those would make a real dent in -- in employment?

CHRISTINA ROMER: You know, what we do know is that the -- the main source of demand and the main source of job growth is going to have to be the private sector. It's going to have to be consumers getting their confidence back and buying goods.

It's going have to be firms doing investment. It's going have to be exports. But, certainly, the kind of actions that are being discussed -- and I should emphasize that no decisions have been made -- that those kind of actions can make a material difference. And especially by addressing particularly weak areas, I think they can be very important.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke said recently that he thinks the unemployment rate is going to stay well above 7 percent through the end of 2012. Do you share that view?

CHRISTINA ROMER: Well, I -- certainly, my -- my advice is, I -- I think the important thing is to do everything possible to make sure that that doesn't happen.

That -- certainly, what I was talking about in a speech that I gave a couple of days ago is that we do have tools for bringing down the unemployment rate. We can do them in a fiscally responsible way. And I think we should, rather -- we certainly shouldn't be lowering our sights. We should be saying, what are the actions that we could take to make sure that the unemployment rate comes down quickly and returns to normal levels?

JUDY WOODRUFF: In that speech that you gave this week, Dr. Romer, you said, among other things, that you failed to anticipate just how violent this recession would be.

It was a pretty searing self-indictment that you delivered. Are you taking full responsibility for what went wrong with this administration's forecasts?

CHRISTINA ROMER: You know, I -- really, what I was talking about is both my own failures, but, of course, I think one of the things I emphasized is that analysts across the ideological spectrum failed to anticipate how severe the crisis would be.

You know, I think one of the things I tried to describe is, we were in unchartered territory. This is not a typical postwar recession. It was caused by a financial crisis in the biggest economy, the center of the world economy, something we haven't seen since the Great Depression.

And I certainly was very frank that there were things that I got wrong, that none of us really knew or anticipated. You know, what I do feel good about is, one, that we have learned, that we certainly -- you know, we gave it our best shot. We very much told the president that this was a serious crisis, we should do all that we could.

And I think we did get as big a Recovery Act as we could have gotten through Congress. But, you know, what we have done ever since then -- we didn't just stop there. It's been a constant process of thinking about, what more do we do for the financial system? What are the evolving steps? And I think that is really the test of policy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently?

CHRISTINA ROMER: Well, you know, knowing what you know now is, you say, the unemployment rate is 9.6 now, two years almost into the crisis, that, of course, what you would do is be more aggressive probably on every front, that you would -- you would be working even harder on the financial system, on the Recovery Act, on the housing program, on, you know, the whole range of actions that we have taken.

You know, we obviously, just judging from where we are now, of course, none of us wanted to be here. So, we certainly would, I think, have been more aggressive along all dimensions.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Bigger stimulus? It was reported that you favored a much bigger stimulus than what the White House ultimately pushed.

CHRISTINA ROMER: No, I think the -- the White House ultimately pushed as big a stimulus as we could get through Congress.

And, you know, I think it's important to keep in mind just how big the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was. It was the biggest fiscal stimulus we have ever done in this country. It has made a tremendous difference. And I am very proud that that action was taken.

I think it's a big part of why we didn't sink into a second Great Depression. Where we are is not good, but it would have been so much worse without the policies that were taken.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The White House does seem to be caught in the middle of this debate. On the one hand, you have critics saying too much was done for Wall Street. On the other hand, you have the critics saying too big a hand -- government hand in the economy.

What does it say about the administration policy, the way you have sold that policy, that you have these two raging sets of criticisms coming at you?

CHRISTINA ROMER: I mean, maybe what it says is, we ended up in the sweet spot, right? If people -- if there is a group that says did you too much and a group that says you did too little, maybe we ended up with what was possible. And I think that is important.

I think, you know, what -- what all of us need to think about is, where are we now? Where do we go from here? And I think, with the unemployment rate where it is, with job growth -- again, it is incredibly important that we are now growing again. The change from where we are when we came into office is dramatic.

But we have to say, how do we get the kind of job growth that will really bring that unemployment rate down quickly? That has to be our focus. And we can't let the American people down.

JUDY WOODRUFF: When you said a moment ago that you would have been -- knowing with what you know today, you would have been more aggressive, in what way?

CHRISTINA ROMER: Well, I think, you know, what I was trying to give is a sense, you know, we took a wide range of policy actions, everything from the stress tests and trying to recapitalize the banking system, to the Recovery Act, to a housing program to prevent foreclosures, to, you know, the cash for clunkers program eventually.

You know, so, I think what you would say is, you would think about each one of those. And in what way could it have been more aggressive? What more could one have done to try to, you know, get even more aid to the economy?

What we now, I think, understand is just the shocks that hit us in the fall of 2008 were enormous. And I think they have affected the economy in a way that, again, very few analysts at the time anticipated.

And we all have to learn and -- and think for the next time of -- of -- hopefully, we will never have a next time, but to learn from this of what you could have done better.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, finally, words of advice for your successor?

CHRISTINA ROMER: I think it's -- it's probably to keep learning, that -- not assume that -- that we know everything, and to, actually, you look at all the information, you be as aggressive as you can in processing that information, but to keep a certain humility as we analyze it, and to make sure that we're evaluating all the new information and doing the best that we can for the American people.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Christina Romer, the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, on your last day at the White House, thank you very much for talking with us.

CHRISTINA ROMER: It's wonderful to be with you one last time.

Listen to the Audio

In other news Friday, U.S. markets rose ahead of the holiday weekend on news of the latest unemployment reading.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Wall Street took some encouragement from the jobs numbers. The Dow Jones industrial average gained more than 127 points to close near 10448. The Nasdaq rose more than 33 points to close above 2233. In all, the markets had their best week since July. The Dow gained nearly 3 percent. The Nasdaq rose more than 3.5 percent.

Hurricane Earl lost a lot of its punch today as it churned north off the East Coast. The storm's winds dropped to 80 miles an hour after swiping at the North Carolina coast.

The storm's western edge blew over the Outer Banks in the middle of the night. But, apparently, hurricane-force winds never reached land, and the sun rose to reveal only minimal damage and choppy surf. Road crews worked to clear sand, in some places, three feet deep, but there was no major flooding. North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue voiced relief that Earl stayed farther offshore than feared.

GOV. BEVERLY PERDUE (D-NC): Purely and simply, North Carolina dodged a bullet, and we're glad that the bullet is now out of our state, for the most part.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The hurricane still had the potential to do damage as it headed north, on course to pass New England tonight. And a series of states remained on alert. In the Mid-Atlantic, both Virginia and Maryland saw stronger waves and wind as Earl passed.

WOMAN: It's almost like you're in a sandstorm.

MAN: This is my first hurricane, or somewhat hurricane. We didn't -- I was expecting more wind and more rain, but the waves are pretty ominous.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Lifeguards watched over swimmers in New Jersey, where one person had already drowned and another was missing. On Long Island, New York, officials said they still expected heavy rain, flooding, and power outages.

STEVE LEVY, Suffolk County Executive: The storm has actually slowed a bit, which you might think is good news, but it means that it may linger over us for longer than we had thought, which means more rain.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And, in Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick warned against under-rating the storm.

GOV. DEVAL PATRICK (D-Mass.: The public should continue to take precautions. In particular, stay indoors and off the roads during the height of the storm. Exercise extreme caution this afternoon during the times when the winds begin to pick up.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Out on the Bay State's coast, inmates from the Plymouth County Jail shoveled and stacked sandbags. Nearly 400 out-of-state utility crews were staged and ready. But, as Earl kept moving, officials up and down the coast hoped to salvage tourist revenue through Labor Day weekend.

Another bombing in Pakistan has killed 54 people. It happened in Quetta in the southwest, the latest in a series of such attacks. A suicide bomber targeted Shiites staging a pro-Palestinian rally and procession through the city. Police said 160 people were wounded. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility, and a spokesman claimed that the group will launch attacks in America and Europe very soon.

In Afghanistan, the U.S. death toll rose again, with another American killed today. It came as Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited U.S. troops in Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban. He said he saw progress there and in Pakistan, where government forces have attacked insurgents in their safe havens.

U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ROBERT GATES: If you had asked me two years ago if I thought the Pakistani army would have 140,000 troops on their western border fighting some of these extremists, be in South Waziristan, be in Swat, be in places like that, I would have thought you were smoking something.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Pakistani officials reported today that U.S. airstrikes killed seven people in the border region. They said drone aircraft fired missiles in two separate attacks.

There have been more battles in Mexico's drug war. Soldiers killed 25 suspects Thursday in a border town not far from McAllen, Texas. They killed five more today in a shoot-out in Juarez. All of the gunmen were believed to be members of the Zetas gang. That group is suspected in the massacre of 72

migrants last month.

Those are some of the day's major stories -- now back to Judy.

Listen to the Audio

The August jobs report released Friday showed that the private sector added 67,000 jobs but jobless numbers still remain grim with the U.S. unemployment rate rising slightly to 9.6 percent. All the while, President Obama urges the public to be patient and insists his policies are working -- just slower than hoped.

JIM LEHRER: The August jobs report turned out a mixed bag of results today. There were slight improvements in the private sector, but they were not enough to reduce overall unemployment.

Ray Suarez has our story.

RAY SUAREZ: More people found work in construction as the summer closed and in hospitals and other health care work. In all, private employers added 67,000 jobs, a modest gain, but better than expected.

At the same time, the public sector shed 121,000 positions, most of them temporary census jobs. The bottom line, a net loss of 54,000 jobs nationwide in August.

President Obama urged patience in the White House Rose Garden this morning.

U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Jobs are being created. They're just not being created as fast as they need to, given the big hole that we experienced.

RAY SUAREZ: Indeed, some nine million jobs were lost in 2008 and 2009, and adding tens of thousands of jobs per month is just not enough to make up that deficit.

The Labor Department did raise its estimates for June and July today. It meant private business added 235,000 jobs this summer. But, as economist Lisa Lynch told the NewsHour last month, that's the kind of number needed each month.

LISA LYNCH, Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandies University: What we really need to see out of the private sector is month after month of 200,000 or more jobs.

RAY SUAREZ: As it is, the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.6 percent in August, as more people came off the sidelines and began looking for work. The rate has been near or above 10 percent for more than a year. All told, nearly 15 million Americans are unemployed. And the underemployment rate is now 16.7 percent, including the unemployed, those who have stopped looking for work, and part-timers. That comes to more than 26 million Americans.

The jobless rate promises to be a prominent issue in the upcoming midterm congressional races. Today, House Republican Leader John Boehner insisted, things won't get better under the president's policies. He said in a statement, "We will not solve our fiscal challenges until we cut spending and have real economic growth, and we won't have real economic growth if we keep raising taxes on small businesses."

BARACK OBAMA: Thank you very much, everybody.

RAY SUAREZ: Mr. Obama renewed his call for a small business tax cut, and he again blamed Republicans in the Senate for blocking it.

First, accept the fact that you're going to feel skuzzy from the moment you alight from the helicopter in a cloud of dust at some remote U.S. military base -- windblown, sweaty, and gritty.

For supplies, just think camping trip without the camp fire (though you may see fire of another sort).

You'll get a bare bones packing list like this from the U.S. military (personal tips in italics):

• Body armor (with lots of pockets) and combat helmet
  
• Ballistic glasses, long sleeved shirts, earplugs and fire resistant flight gloves for chopper and MRAP/Humvee rides
• Well broken-in hiking boots
• A neck-wearable credential pack with clear plastic front. (Handy for stashing cash and a credit card, too)
• All necessary medications, sunscreen, toothbrush, etc. -- and shower shoes (flip flops will do)
• Sleeping bag, towel, soap and TP "if desired" when sleeping "outside the wire." (For nights on base, the contractor-built communal bathrooms are stocked)
• Flashlight with red light cover (go for Surefire - all the Army folks carry them)
• A head lamp (for those late night latrine runs)

But what they won't tell you is more important.

Forget the pocketbook. You don't want anything in your hands when on patrol or moving on choppers. Ditto life on base. Soldiers carry their weapons into dinner at the DFAC (the affectionately acronymed dining facilities on bases).

But you can't take in a bag of any sort -- no satchel, fanny pack or backpack. The reason is deadly serious: the threat of suicide bombings. A large billboard greets diners at the DFAC on the Marez base near Mosul, where we stayed. It honors 22 -- including 14 U.S. soldiers -- who perished in a lunchtime suicide explosion there just before Christmas in 2004.

So you must carry everything essential on your body, day and evening.

You will need:

• Pants with pockets, lots of them, for your reporter's notebook, pens, U.S. cell phone/BlackBerry/e-mail device, local overseas cell phone, mini-camera, Flip mini videocamera, business cards, neck scarf and any item listed above that you'll need during the day (sunscreen, earplugs, gloves, a compact, protective lip gloss). Yes, it will add 10 pounds to your silhouette, but get over it.
• A body armor model (if you get to choose) with equally large pockets for same, plus loops from which to dangle small and large D-rings, so you can festoon yourself like a Christmas tree with the items you need at the ready.
• A comb short enough to fit into a pocket for a quick hair repair when you take your helmet off your matted, sweating head.
• Enough long-sleeve shirts, T-shirts and cargo pants to have a clean set every day -- or shampoo to wash them in the basin at night. Trust me, there's no Day 2 for clothing in this environment.
• Mini Coleman lantern for bedside reading
• A book (mine is "Churchill's Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq," but for escape bring a novel or poetry)
• Your own squishable down pillow and pillow case
• Finally, one nice outfit (pressed blue or black jeans, pressed shirt) in case the base commander invites you for dinner. Even if he doesn't, for one night in the DFAC, you may just feel like treating yourself to appearing in something that isn't the color of dust.

Read more of Margaret Warner's blogs from her military embed in Mosul, Iraq. And tune into Friday's NewsHour for an in-depth look at Iraq's electricity problems.

JOBS REPORT GIVES MIXED NUMBERS | The private sector did better than expected adding 67,000 jobs to the market, but unemployment numbers remain grim with the rate slightly rising to 9.6 percent. All the while President Obama is urging the public to be patient and said his policies are working--just at a slow pace.

OBAMA ECONOMIC ADVISER ASSESSES JOB NUMBERS | The head of the president's council of economic advisers, Christina Romer, examines the economic numbers that came out Friday and also looks back on her time in the Obama White House.

BURNT-OUT EMPLOYEES| Paul Solman examines the rising number of employees who are being asked to do more and more for less money. This report is part of Paul Solman's ongoing reporting on Making Sense of Financial News.

IRAQI ELECTRICAL SYSTEM WOES | Margaret Warner wraps up her trip to Iraq with a report on power shortages. The lack of electricity has become a part of daily life for many Iraqi's and frustration is growing.

SHIELDS AND BROOKS WEEKLY ANALYSIS | Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks analyze this week's top news.

75TH ANNUAL SHRIMP AND PETROLEUM FESTIVAL | Even after the BP oil spill all but canceled this year's shrimp harvest in the Gulf, the 75th Annual Shrimp and Petroleum Festival in Morgan City, Louisiana is full steam ahead.

Friday's anchors are Jim Lehrer and Judy Woodruff. Hari Sreenivasan has the day's other top news stories and look at the Web features. On the Rundown, Margaret Warner has a new blog post on what a reporter should pack when embedding with the military. There's more on worker burn-out on Paul Solman's Making Sense Page. Plus, David Chalian interviews the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Bush era tax cuts.

Also on the Art Beat, Jeffrey Brown talks to author Lawrence Wright about his one-man play based on his bestseller about al-Qaida.

We hope you'll join us.

Nervous Afghanis are rushing to withdraw money from Afghanistan's largest bank following the resignation of two top executives and allegations of mismanagement and corruption.

The New York Times reported this week Kabul Bank's losses could exceed $300 million, an amount the paper says is "far exceeding its capital."

The central bank of Afghanistan and President Hamid Karzai, whose brother holds a 7 percent stake in Kabul Bank, have stepped in to try calm investors' fears, Global Post's Jean MacKenzie reports:

Karzai late on Thursday did not deny that Kabul Bank had its difficulties, but insisted that the government was able to control the situation.

"We deemed it necessary to take action immediately [in the case of Kabul Bank]," he said. "But Kabul Bank is safe. People don't have to panic ... The government of Afghanistan is fully behind that bank."

But his remarks are unlikely to quell the growing fears among his countrymen, hundreds of whom were lined up in the hot sun outside the main branch of Kabul Bank on Thursday, patiently waiting their turn. Inside, the crush was almost suffocating - there was barely room to push between the crowds desperately trying, first to get a number, then to be served.

There was little panic in the air, more a grim determination to get their money as soon as possible and get away from what many see as a tainted organization.

"We do not trust this bank any more," said a young man who identified himself as a researcher at a local think tank. "The government is corrupt, and that corruption is spreading."

Read more of MacKenzie's report over at Global Post.

Editor's Note: On Friday's NewsHour, Paul Solman looks at the issue of worker burnout as a side effect of the recession. As companies have reduced their workforce, the remaining employees are having to do more with less. Below, Maryland public defender Emily Livingston describes how her caseload has increased:

(Watch a larger version of the video.)

We also interviewed flight attendant Ramona Arellano-Snyder. Here, she discusses how many in her line of work are forced to work extra hours to make up for lost pay.

MORGAN CITY, La. | Some people might find it odd that this city near Louisiana's southern coast has a Shrimp and Petroleum Festival. Somehow the two don't seem to go together.

But some local citizens get a bit testy if you ask them about that juxtaposition. They say it's really a harvest festival, and that people here "harvest" oil from the sea in the same way that they harvest shrimp.

It started out as just the Shrimp Festival 75 years ago. But after oil companies began drilling wells offshore in 1947, the oil business gradually overtook shrimping as the area's main economic engine. So the festival's name was changed to Shrimp and Petroleum in 1967.

The celebration is getting a lot of unusual attention from the national and international press, primarily because of the BP oil disaster. Local newspaper editor Steve Shirley told us he's been getting a lot of questions about why shrimpers and other fishermen aren't angry with people in the oil business. He patiently explains that they're often the same people. They work on the well platforms and fish on their days off.

Although the Macondo well oil never fouled Morgan City's beaches -- the blown-out well was too far east -- it's still having a major impact on the town's economy. Shrimper Matt Tune has docked his boat until October because nobody's been catching anything. In fact, it's been so bad that Tune says the shrimp that people will be eating during the festival are coming from the East Coast, and he's somewhat embarrassed by that.

The prospects for the oil business aren't much better. Bill New runs a business that turns flat steel plates into pressure vessels -- large tanks -- that are used in offshore installations and also on barges. He's worried that the ongoing federal moratorium on deepwater-drilling operations will eventually lead to a lot of people losing jobs, because he thinks the companies can't afford to wait very long before having to move their rigs elsewhere.

The production platform fire Thursday threw a lot of people for a loop -- at least until more information started to come in. Some told us they were afraid the incident would provide more ammunition for those who support continuing the moratorium, which is scheduled to end in November. Many here had hoped it would be lifted this month.

The festival opened Thursday night and really gets underway in earnest Friday. Mayor Tim Matte says they're going to put all those worries aside and "kind of just enjoy each other's company, enjoy the music, enjoy the food." That includes the "Alligator on a Stick" being sold on the carnival midway.

Tom Bearden will have more from the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival on Friday's NewsHour.

Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright and staff writer for The New Yorker, winning numerous awards along the way. His book, "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11," was published in 2006, spent eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and won several accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction and a nomination for the National Book Award. NYU's School of Journalism called Wright's book one of the ten best works of journalism in the previous decade.

His one-man play "My Trip to al-Qaeda," which is based on the book, premiered in 2006. Now, it has been made into a documentary film, directed by Academy Award-winner Alex Gibney, and premieres on HBO on Tuesday:

I spoke to Wright last week about the project:

 
A transcript of our conversation is after the jump.

JEFFREY BROWN: Welcome to Art Beat. This is Jeffrey Brown. Joining me today is Lawrence Wright, here to talk about his documentary, "My Trip to Al-Qaeda," which is based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Looming Tower." Welcome to you.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Thank you, Jeff. It's good to talk to you again.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes, talk again. It's been fun to kind of follow this from the book to the stage to the film, so before we even go into the substance, did you have any idea of what all this would become when you started long ago?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: No. Well, when 9/11 happened, I knew pretty quickly I wanted to write a book about it because it was just the main thing was going to happen in my generation. I felt a compelling need to address it, but when I finished the book, honestly, I was sick of writing about terrorism. I had been affected years ago by going to see Anna Deavere Smith do her one-woman play called "Fires in the Mirror," about the Crown Heights tragedy. I just was very struck by the fact that she had been able to marry journalism and theater. I got intrigued by the notion that these apparently very disparate disciplines -- journalism and theater -- could be put together in a kind of nonfiction theatrical form.

JEFFREY BROWN: What was most interesting to you along the way in learning about the differences, and then how to process and disseminate information?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: In a way I don't think that they're entirely different. If you think about how the reporting game must have begun years ago when people were sitting around campfires and somebody went over the hill to see what was over there and came back and made a report, that's the roots of journalism. And in a way when I'm standing on the stage I feel really in contact with that. I am talking to the community about what I learned. It's a very intimate way of communicating with people. It's hard to express how gratifying it is to be able to have the audience right out in front of you, that you are actually talking to. You don't see your readers.

JEFFREY BROWN: And what about the turning it into a film. You worked with Alex Gibney -- I've seen the stage version, I've now seen the film version. Of course the film allows you to open up a bit because you show both what's happening in the intimacy of the theater but also out in the world.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: When I was doing the play at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Alex came to see the show. We met afterwards and he said he had a concept for how it could become a more cinematic piece. In the play there is a screen where I project images taken from my travels and he said that screen becomes a portal. And you can go through that portal from the stage to anywhere in the world. And then you can always return to home base, which is the stage. I thought it was a really brilliant concept that allowed the integrity of the play to remain, but it became much more cinematic immediately.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, we should turn to the actual substance, which is tracing from the book now to the movie, tracing the lines that lead to the rise of a movement or a terror network, while much of the world wasn't watching. Have there been some changes in your thinking about that or some things that didn't strike you in your original reporting?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Things have been evolving since I started my original research. Al-Qaeda has changed and grown and survived, and I learned a lot about that organization and about our response to it. Those are the things that I think that are really striking to me. When al-Qaeda hit America on 9/11, it was the kind of IBM of terror. It was a very hierarchical organization, you know, you had to sign the form in triplicate to buy a spare tire, you know, but it had health benefits and month-long paid vacations for its employees it was, you know, Osama Bin Laden was a business student. That's the organization he created and that is not what we're facing now. It's a much flatter, smaller, more nimble and multifarious organization than it was then. Also, when we tried to respond the threat that al-Qaeda imposed to us on 9/11, we made a lot of mistakes. The level of knowledge about Islam, about terrorism, about the countries that we were engaging was so low, and I have to say that in many respects we still have a lot to overcome. One of the heroes of my book who also figures in the film, Ali Soufan ...

JEFFREY BROWN: ...Former FBI agent...

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: ...He was more than anyone, Ali came closer to stopping 9/11 and might have been able to had been given free rein by the CIA, which stood in his way. Ali is a native Arabic speaker and understands the language and a culture in a way that very few people in the intelligence community do. He was one of eight Arabic-speaking agents on 9/11. Last year when I checked with the FBI there were nine. So I can't say that we've made a tremendous amount of progress in bringing people into the intelligence community who have a profound understanding of where this movement comes from.

JEFFREY BROWN: What about the other running theme through the book, the staged play and the movie is this idea of humiliation that drove so many of the people who joined or formed al-Qaeda. Talk a little bit about that as it translates even to today as you look at sort of the broader situation. Is it still an important theme?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: It's a crucial theme. Humiliation is one of the most common words in Bin Laden's vocabulary. Certainly there have been many Muslim men who have been physically humiliated, especially Arabs and Egyptians in those prisons. For instance, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two guy in al-Qaeda, experienced three years of torture in Egyptian prisons, as was true of many people who are in al-Qaeda today. I think that accounts for the appetite for bloodshed that's so characteristic of al-Qaeda and so unusual in many respects for a terrorist movement, which is normally just interested in theater. Physical humiliation really has an effect, but there is also a kind of sense of cultural loss that I think Bin Laden is speaking to when he uses the word humiliation. He himself, of course, has never been physically humiliated. He's a rich kid from Saudi Arabia, the son of one of the most prominent families in the country. When he uses that term, it resonates with many Muslims who feel that Islam has been in retreat for hundreds of years and been displaced from his proper place in the world.

JEFFREY BROWN: Before I let you go, dare I ask what's next for you? Is it the actor side of Lawrence Wright, journalist or some combination thereof?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Jeff, I have to admit I'm doing this again.

JEFFREY BROWN: You are?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: I am. I've got a new play that is about Israel and Gaza. It's called "The Human Scale," and the Public Theater is putting it on in New York October 2. We open with the New Yorker Festival and run for a month at a theater in downtown called 3LD. I thought I would never do it again. But, you know, here I am learning lines again. It's
a very challenging and interesting experience for me.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. "My Trip to Al Qaeda" airs on HBO on September 7. Lawrence Wright, it's nice to talk to you again.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Thank you, Jeff. I'll look forward to talking again in the future.

JEFFREY BROWN: And this is Jeffrey Brown for Art Beat. Thank you for joining us.

Kellie Maier kayaks Friday on water-covered Highway 12 in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Hurricane Earl continued to churn along the East Coast Friday, heading north from North Carolina and expected to reach southeastern Massachusetts by Friday night.

The hurricane was downgraded to a Category 1 storm and it was still predicted to stay slightly east of the coast, but strong winds and heavy rain threatened holiday weekend travel plans and prompted tropical storm warnings throughout the mid-Atlantic and a hurricane warning on Cape Cod.

You can track the storm's progress with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Earl widget, which will take you to a website with the latest official public advisories for areas under hurricane watches and hurricane warnings, as well as charts of the wind speed and storm surge probabilities along the East Coast:

Below, more resources:

The National Weather Service has a map of all U.S. weather advisories -- including those related to Earl -- as well as a drop-down menu to view advisories by state. The NWS also has the radar view of the storm.

The Washington Post collects that view and others on its Hurricane Tracking Center site.

NASA satellites and aircraft follow the storm from space and the sky -- some even fly through the storm. NASA's hurricane website has information and images, you can also follow the agency's hurricane Twitter feed.

Bronze works by renowned French artist Edgar Degas are seen at a press preview in Sofia. Bulgaria's National Art Gallery has announced that it will present the full collection of 74 bronze sculptures by the French impressionist Edgar Degas. Photo by Ditmar Dilkoff/ AFP/ Getty Images

*

Conservators at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam have finished restoring the artist's iconic painting of his bedroom at Arles, via the Associated Press. You can read more about the process on the museum's blog.

*

The Seattle Art Museum has asked for a $10 million loan as it struggles to keep up with the costs of its expensive new building through the economic downturn, via ARTINFO.

*

Slate reveals an exclusive look at artwork made by the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay.

*

Need To Know follows the daughter of a famous ethnomusicologist who is trying to restore Haiti's lost music.

"A great moment of opportunity," she said.

"There's a lot of skepticism out there," he said. "But I think there is ground to be hopeful."

She was Madeleine Albright, a Democrat and former secretary of state. He was Stephen Hadley, who served as national security adviser in George W. Bush's second term. On the PBS NewsHour this week, they were in lockstep on one of the most stubbornly contentious conflicts of our time: Middle East peace.

After watching and covering the on-again, off-again effort to find middle ground between Israelis and Palestinians for decades, it is not completely crazy to be skeptical of the prospects for actual peace.

I was one of the hundreds standing on the White House south lawn on Sept. 13, 1993, when President Clinton nudged Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat into a tentative handshake to seal the Oslo Accords. You could feel the history in the air.

Two years later, the same two men shook hands once again, this time under the chandeliers in the White House East Room. They'd amended the deal they were signing just minutes before in pen and ink. Once again there was applause.

But less than two months later, Rabin was assassinated, sending the peace talks back onto their regrettably familiar cycle of diplomatic frustration. From Camp David to Annapolis; from Aqaba to Madrid to Sharm el-Sheik, the peace talks have bounced to and fro across the Atlantic.

The arguments vary only a little - two-state solutions, Palestinian right of return, settlements in Gaza, dividing Jerusalem.

But efforts at Middle East peace do seem to be something that makes allies of normally warring parties in this country at least. As Albright and Hadley demonstrated on the NewsHour, American presidents and their lieutenants seem unable to turn away from the prospect for peace -- no matter which party they swear allegiance to.

Still, it is Mr. Obama -- like so many chief executives before him -- who must, in Albright's words, be "the closer."

"In the end of the day," Hadley agreed, "Middle East peace is presidential business." Good thing the president does not have anything else on his plate these days.

But he may have taken some heart in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's words to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas this week. "I see in you a partner for peace," the Israeli leader said. "Together we can lead our people to a historic future that can put an end to claims and to conflict."

It's what Yasser Arafat called "the peace of the brave." Arafat, who died in 2004, said that in 1995.

Gwen's Take is cross-posted with the Washington Week website. Friday's Washington Week roundtable will assess how the Obama administration is trying to "turn the page" from Iraq to a slew of other domestic and foreign policy issues.

On a day when new jobs numbers indicate that U.S. unemployment is continuing to edge up, Paul Solman answers a viewer question on the Business Desk about how it's possible to have a jobless recovery.

Name: Mohammad Khan

Question: I have a hard time understanding "jobless recovery." If there are few jobs and businesses are suffering, how are the Wall Street indicators (DJIA etc.) recovering from lows just two years ago?

Paul Solman: The Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 giant and supposedly representative companies is more than 50 percent higher than when it hit bottom after Lehman Brothers. Thus the question.

The answer, I think, is both simple and important to understand. Stock is an ownership stake in a company. If the company becomes more profitable, any share of it is worth more. Period. It has nothing to do with how many people the company hires.

In fact, as we all know, companies laid off workers in droves during and after the crisis. At first, it didn't help profits any, as the world stopped buying and sales sank. But, gradually, inventories were depleted and firms had to start making more stuff. In addition, our government and others (including China's) poured money into the global economy to goose demand. All of this made for higher sales.

But -- and this is the BIG "but" -- companies did not start rehiring workers. They made do with trimmed-down workforces. (We'll have a story tonight on the NewsHour about worker burnout that looks at a few of the repercussions.)

And therein lies the answer to your question, Mohammad. Greater sales + lower employee expenses = GREATER PROFITS. Which is just what U.S. firms have been reporting all year.

Shares of stock, as I said, represent a claim on the pro-rated slice of those profits. That is, you own 1000 shares of a company, say, with a million shares outstanding -- trading publicly -- and your stake represents one one-thousandth of the profit; you own 100,000 shares and you've got a claim on 10 percent of the profits, and so on.

No wonder, then, that as companies become more profitable, the value of their shares goes up. And that happens regardless of how many total jobs are -- or are not -- out there.

Now eventually (the thinking goes), a "jobless recovery" will peter out, as unemployed workers dampen demand, which would presumably translate -- eventually -- into lower sales and lower profits. But suppose, mainly to be provocative, that America can get by with 15 million fewer workers -- permanently. And that the Americans who remain in the workforce can buy enough to keep the economy humming. In that case, you could conceivably have profitable companies AND high unemployment, theoretically even forever. A truly jobless recovery.