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December 14, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· Senator Jon Kyl;
· ASU Biodesign Institute
In-Studio Guests:
· Arizona Senator Jon Kyl;
· George Poste, Director, ASU's Biodesign Institute

Michael Grant:
Tonight on "HORIZON", questions remain about U.S. policy in Iraq. Do we have enough forces? Are they properly armored? We'll put those questions to Arizona Senator Jon Kyl who recently visited the country. Plus, ASU opens a new research facility it hopes will revolutionize how research is done. We'll take a look at the new bio design institute.

>> Underwriter:
"HORIZON" is made possible by the friends of Channel 8, members who provide financial support to this Arizona PBS station. Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
Good evening, welcome to "HORIZON". I'm Michael Grant. The U.S. Air Force is taking a greater role in delivering equipment and supplies in Iraq. The shift away from truck convoys started a couple weeks before a national guardsman complained to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the lack of armor for convoy vehicles. Joining me now is Arizona Senator Jon Kyl who recently visited Iraq and several other countries in the general vicinity.

>> John Kyl:
I spent Thanksgiving lunch with the troops in Iraq and the next day in Kabul, Afghanistan, Jordan, and Kuwait. I got a pretty good quick tour of the area, but it was great to be with the troops on Thanksgiving Day.

>> Michael Grant:
Situation better in Afghanistan and Pakistan than in Iraq?

>> John Kyl:
Very good. I am quite optimistic about both Pakistan Afghanistan. Pakistan, remember, was helping the Taliban. It was holding a lot of Al-Qaeda in their country, with President Musharif strongly switching to the U.S. side in the war on terror, we have rounded up more terrorists in Pakistan than probably all of the other countries combined. He is helping a great deal. He is in a pretty good position in his country. Afghanistan, we took that country in less than six weeks, few casualties, established a great presence, basically kicked the Taliban out. They held an election. President Karzai has been installed in office. He is a very, very charismatic leader. People turned out to vote in the election in numbers that would embarrass us in the United States. That situation, I think, is going very, very well. Iraq, much more difficult.

>> Michael Grant:
Speaking of elections, obviously the election in Iraq scheduled next month. Does it go? Does it become a plebiscite that the people of Iraq can have confidence in? Is it the sort of boost we're hoping for?

>> John Kyl:
It is a very important mile stone. Each of the things that have been done to turn power to the Iraqis so they can run their own government and country are critical to moving the terrorists back further and further into the background and every successful milestone is a defeat. The elections will occur in January, they may not be perfect but they will occur. I hope Saddam Hussein is tried, and assuming the evidence is there to execute him, that will be done. Then they will have elections, I believe, next October for the presidency. The first elections are to create the constitutional body that will write their constitution. Each of those steps will get them to the point where the terrorists have less credibility and the political leaders of the country have more and more credibility. Hopefully along with that we will continue to train Iraqi Special Forces and police to help them gain better control of the country so we can gradually reduce our presence.

>> Michael Grant:
Senator John McCain in the past couple of days said he has no confidence in the Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld because he believes the Secretary of Defense has not deployed adequate troops to Iraq and somewhat related to the subject we're discussing, do you have adequate troops there to help make this a successful election next month?

>> John Kyl:
There are so many different elements that go into the decision-making. To get the Iraqis to do the job themselves, you can't keep doing it for them. It's like the eagle that has to kick the bird out of the nest the baby eagle is going to fly. We have had the same experience with our kids. At some point you have to back off and give them the ability and the authority to do the job. Secondly, we don't want a huge footprint over there. Most of the folks would like to have a stay only so long as is necessary for security, but don't be too obvious about our occupation. There's a tension between having a lot of troops around the country and trying to make our presence as minimal as we can consistent with getting the job done.

>> Michael Grant:
Seems one of the things being said, you can analogize to the bird being kicked out of the nest is, are they ready to fly. And one of the criticisms is, particularly in the next 45, 60-day period they are not ready to fly.

>> John Kyl:
And we're not leaving within that period of time I'll be glad if we're gone in four years.

>> Michael Grant:
Do we have the adequate troop deployment right now?

>> John Kyl:
That could be debated endlessly. The secretary says he is providing the troops the commander's say they need. When we were there the commanders said the troop level would be increased somewhat. We weren't allowed to say it, but that's subsequently been revealed. And that's what they said they needed. So I don't feel I'm competent to make that kind of judgment between 138,000 and 150,000 troops. That's a calibration that I'm not capable of making. I have to rely upon the generals with whom we talked and the civilian leaders in the Pentagon who are trying to calibrate all of this to try to insure there is security for the election and training Iraqis to eventually take over the running of the country. One of the things we did while in Jordan was to watch the training of these special police units for the Iraqis. We didn't get it right the first time around. Now we're training over 3,000 a month, doing a good job of the training, they're doing a good job and there are plenty of recruits, which is very interesting.

>> Michael Grant:
Are we equipping our guys correctly? The whole flap about the armor dispute?

>> John Kyl:
First of all, I think what Secretary Rumsfeld should have told that soldier, if you're going north to combat, you should have the armor and if your unit doesn't, see colonel so-and-so over here and we'll take care of it. Because that is the intention and there is enough armor to do that. The question is, can we put armor on the trucks that convoys supply. As you mentioned, we're beginning to fly stuff in the C-130s. That's an expensive way to get equipment to the theater. It's easier to convoy it. We only have 15 or 20% of the vehicles there armored and I think the troops are correct to complain those aren't fully armored. We have an outfit here in Tempe that can do the job and we are relying on the depots around the country, basically the maintenance yards for the Army to do that. That's wrong. I have disagreements, too, with the way the Pentagon is doing it, and I think the soldiers have some beefs. But, as a lot of stories there are some true, some not true, and we need to get the emotion out of it and doing the job.

>> Michael Grant:
Governor Janet Napolitano thinks you would do a great job as director of homeland security.

>> John Kyl:
I like the job I've got.

>> Michael Grant:
You are mentioned frequently for United States Supreme Court, the Chief Justice is obviously ailing. Would you be interested in an appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court?

>> John Kyl:
Anyone, Michael, you are a good lawyer, I have argued cases before the Supreme Court. It would be a tremendous honor to serve on that court. I would urge the president to look for people young enough to have a long career on the court. You may say look at the justices, they stay there a long time. I'm not sure that's a great thing. There are a whole host of really well qualified young jurists around the country, and very highly qualified lawyers, like Miguel Estrada, for example, who could serve with distinction for a long time.

>> Michael Grant:
Politically, is that what the president should do, look for a first Hispanic chief justice, a first woman chief justice perhaps?

>> John Kyl:
Either one. Our own Sandra O'Connor sitting on the court would be highly qualified for the chief justice position, but one wonders how long Justice O'Connor might remain on the court. The president might bring somebody off the court to be the chief justice. Or there is some speculation he could take a sitting member who is going to be there a little longer like Clarence Thomas, for example, and nominate him for the chief justice if Chief Justice Rehnquist were to step down. I suspect after some period of time he will do that. And then the president has the choice of either having two confirmations or one. Taking somebody from outside to be the chief justice or taking somebody to replace Rehnquist and somebody from the court to ascend to the position of chief.

>> Michael Grant:
If I recall correctly, that's what Richard Nixon did with Rehnquist.

>> John Kyl:
Let's not go back in history too far.

>> Michael Grant:
Ronald Reagan did with Rehnquist. I want to talk a little bit about the water settlement. Historic couple of weeks ago. I want to say it was a couple of years ago you were here about this time of year and you were saying to me, I can't recall if it was on or off the air, Mike, I think this is going to be the year for it. A couple years later, the job got done and it's truly an historic settlement.

>> John Kyl:
And not only did we resolve claims of the Gila River Indian community and Tohono O'odham community to water, but we resolved a huge, multi million dollar water dispute between the United States government and the CAP, the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, over how much the Arizona government owed to construct the CAP and we created a sum of water and money for future Indian water settlements. We have turned immediately to work with the San Carlos Indian Apache tribe, the White Mountain Apache tribe is beginning negotiations, and we have ongoing negotiations with Navajo and Hopi, with the result that hopefully we can use the settlement which creates the money and the water for these future settlements, as well, to effectuate the other settlements hopefully over a lot less period of time than it took for this big one.

>> Michael Grant:
The only criticism I've heard is, hold it, why should less than one percent of the state's population end up with almost half of the state's CAP allocation?

>> John Kyl:
That's a good question. Primarily farmers went back to Washington in the 1960s to lobby for the Central Arizona Project; it was thought it would be agricultural water for central Arizona. Nobody thought it a lot would go to the Indian tribes. The problem is, the United States Supreme Court, as you know, has created precedents establishing rights for Indian tribes, Gila River Indian community being right south of Phoenix in an area that could easily farmed, and through which the Gila River runs, had a very good claim to a lot of water. Instead of saying to the City of Mesa, Tempe, Phoenix, for example, Chandler, to the Salt River project, Roosevelt irrigation district, mining companies and so on, stop using some of your water, it's ours, what the tribe did is you keep using all of that water but we need a source of water that makes up for that. The central Arizona Project water to a large extent was available. It was a very complicated matter but we were able to do in effect was allow everybody to continue their uses but take some of the CAP water that was not yet allocated to anybody else and allocate to Indian tribes to satisfy their claims. To some extent it was a win-win proposition. One might say that's a small number of people that have a lot of water, according to U.S. Supreme Court precedents we intended for reservations to have enough water to make them viable, and this is what will accomplish that legal precedent.

>> Michael Grant:
Certainly brought great certainty to a situation that has been quite uncertain.

>> John Kyl:
Everybody now knows what their rights are and how much development that they can allow, and all the rest of it.

>> Michael Grant:
Arizona Senator John Kyl, always a pleasure. Happy holidays.

>> John Kyl:
Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
Arizona State University officially dedicated its new research facility today. The biodesign institute combines the disciplines of biology, engineering and computing. As Paul Atkinson reports, it's an effort to get scientists to collaborate on research affecting human health.

>> Paul Atkinson:
What appears as just another non-descript college building on the outside is anything but on the inside. The new biodesign institute at Arizona State University features four levels and 170,000 square feet of space. Before a crowd of university and community leaders, ASU president Michael Crow underlined the importance of the new facility.

>> Michael Crow:
Arizona is growing up. This building is a symbol of that growing up. You wouldn't expect us to do things in the same old way anyone else has done in the past, you would expect from your university, from our faculty, leadership, you would expect what we are trying to do here, a new way to attack discovery, a new way to attack technology development and a new perspective.

>> Paul Atkinson:
One thing missing in the research areas are walls that divide research teams. Crow says too often scientists build walls between them.

>> Michael Crow: We're not intending for a building like this to tear those walls down, but we're intending to find a place where people acculturated in various perspectives of science and technology can come together and can come together to create things that on their own they can't create, to discover things that on their own they might have a harder time discovering.

>> Paul Atkinson:
Biodesign students and faculty showcased their research to those attending the opening. Some of the scientific disciplines sound like they're straight out of a science fiction novel. Evolutionary functional genomics, neural interface design, rehabilitation neuroscience.

>> Stephanie Nowak:
We are really overwhelmed. It's so unbelievably impressive. We have had a chance to talk to a number of students and the work they are doing is truly revolutionary.

>> Paul Atkinson:
Ph.D. student Trent Northen is involved in bioptical nanotechnology research.

>> Trent Northern:
You work in your own lab and you don't know what your neighbor is doing. Here you know what everybody is doing on the floor, and if you need help or ideas, you can walk right over there is a physicist. So that's a very exciting opportunity.

>> Paul Atkinson:
That excitement was noticed by John Marbuger, director of science and technology policy at the White House. Marbuger has visited several similar facilities.

>> John Marbuger:
There are many clever ideas, there is a lot of money being invested around the country in large states and small states, in innovative centers that try to break down the walls. But in none of them have I felt the energy and excitement and indeed the careful planning that goes into making a successful center like this.

>> Paul Atkinson:
The $69 million facility was paid for with research grants and Prop 301 money. A second building under construction will be paid for by money appropriated by the legislature. Two more research facilities are in the plan. ASU hopes to spin off research into profitable commercial ventures, allowing the facilities to ultimately pay for themselves.

>> Michael Grant:
Joining me now is George Poste, director of ASU's Biodesign Institute. Dr. Poste was recently named scientist of the year by "R and D Magazine" which reports on the scientific research and development community. Congratulations on that.

>> George Poste:
Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
Nobel Prize, R and D magazine. Really cookin'.

>> George Poste:
ASU is on the move.

>> Michael Grant:
How does the biodesign institute differ from other research institutes?

>> George Poste:
It reflects what is a trend in science at large, which is blurring the boundaries between different types of sciences. Used to be you had biology, chemistry, physics, engineering. Now those are blurring together and we have to find a way to harness each of them as we try to tackle biggest problems of the globe.

>> Michael Grant:
Is it difficult to get researchers in markedly different fields to collaborate?

>> George Poste:
For some, it's literally impossible. Others, the intellectual domain is attractive because they have opportunity to learn in new fields. The big challenge will be for the educational establishment that is not adapted to that, we still largely teach people silo disciplines.

>> Michael Grant:
One of the comments made today is that there is a different -- paraphrase -- energy level associated with the biodesign institute that obviously was a subject of comment on the speaker's part. What was he driving at? What's different about the energy level?

>> George Poste:
I think it's really intensity at one level, it's enthusiasm. This is a remarkable facility, one of the best science facilities in the nation -- not just because it's brand new, but because a lot of thought is being given to the planning how you merge and fuse these different scientific researches within the same building.

>> Michael Grant:
You mentioned in your remarks today that there are four areas of focus, and I would like to walk through. The first, biosignatures. What are we talking about when we talk about biosignatures.

>> George Poste:
How do we create a molecular fingerprint, unique feature of every cell type in the body or, indeed, every life form on the planet for that matter. What makes a brain cell different from a liver cell versus a bone cell is reflected in the way genes are switched on and off and those represent signatures for those cell types. By understanding the normal signature for each cell type in the body, we can compare with that what's gone wrong with disease, so it provides a diagnostic to tell you the disease is underway but by knowing which genes have been switched on and off to give that signature we can target new drugs to attack that signature to reverse it back.

>> Michael Grant:
It sounds like a detection criteria but also somewhat of a targeting criteria.

>> George Poste: Absolutely. It will not only improve the specificity of the diagnosis of the disease, it will be allowing us to be far more rational in the molecular targets in the drugs we design to go after or to design better vaccine because we can identify the signature of that particular organism.

>> Michael Grant:
I'm not sure I'm going to pronounce this right. Is it nanoscale?

>> George Poste:
This is nanotechnology, which is engineering of the most minimal form. A nanometer is roughly one ten-thousandth the size of a human hair. It's what nature is doing in our body every day, every second, but for the first time we have the technological tools to begin to duplicate what nature does. In fact, the name of the institute, the Biodesign institute, is to understand what biological systems do, how they function, how they are organized so if we can duplicate them, we can perform many of the remarkable functions that not only our body performs but we see across the entire spectrum interest of life on the planet.

>> Michael Grant:
I have heard it referred to as tiny little robots?

>> George Poste:
Those are the nanobots, they say live in the realm of science fiction. It started with Isaac Asimov's story, The Fantastic Voyage, where you have the mini sub to go in and rotoroot the blood clot in the vessel.

>> Michael Grant:
Good movie.

>> George Poste:
It was a good movie. Ahead of its time, but we're just about getting there. They may not be robots, but the question of design of micro devices for doing things in the body is a very important application. Another important application is targeted delivery of different material to regions of the body.

>> Michael Grant:
Bionics, we can rebuild him. The 6 million-dollar man. Am I on the right track?

>> George Poste:
You are on the right track. Again, Steve Austin, was a little ahead of his time. We are only on the threshold of being able to think about how do we take something as remarkable as an arm or leg, which we take for granted, understand the engineering principles behind that. How do your fingers know to distinguish between paper, plastic, whether it's hot, cold, all of the remarkable things we take for granted cannot be done by definition by someone who has lost a limb or suffered spinal cord damage and now in the context of being at war, we have a number of brave young men and women who will need new prostheses. A whole new program has developed called intelligent prostheses, not just the traditional sort of mechanical lever that a prosthesis used to be, but How do we duplicate the function of a hand or leg and couple it to your thought processes so it's as natural to move that prosthesis as it is for you or I to move the hand with the privilege that represents.

>> Michael Grant:
The fourth area of focus is environmental technology. This one is generally more familiar to us. How does it function in the Biodesign institute?

>> George Poste:
It comes to the issue of understanding biological systems. In this case, what we need to know is how can we utilize the skill, particularly microorganisms, to digest particular materials in the environment. So if we want microorganisms to digest oil or toxic materials in the environment, then you actually engineer into that bacteria the genes that will digest oil. Or not to digest materials, produce materials. Part of the great challenge is how to convert traditional manufacturing processes to green manufacturing processes that don't deplete non-renewable sources. So whether you're talking about producing vaccines or plastics, how do you actually program the genes to produce the immunizing antigen for a vaccine or the genes that will produce a plastic or genes that will replace petrochemical products and free us from the yoke of dependency on classical oil products.

>> Michael Grant:
Finally, maybe the toughest question: How soon does ASU see a return on this investment? How soon do we see major developments?

>> George Poste:
I think we are already seeing a return. In the first year, we have seen almost a 31% increase in the amount of federal grant funds. We were major players in the successful competitive venture to bring the Army's research lab in flexible display technology, a $100 million grant over five years, the largest to come to ASU. Equally, the capacity of this remarkable facility, given it is the first wing of four, 170,000 square feet in an 800,000 square foot facility, it's an enormous magnet for the best and brightest. We are bringing Dr. Roy Curtis, a member of the National Academy, to Arizona with his entire research team. Apart from the $3 million he brings with him in grants, it's the prestige. In January, Professor Bruce Ritman, another member of the National Academy, will be coming to head the environmental technology center. And as we open the second wing of this facility in the fall of 2005, much of my early New Year will be spent trying to recruit other super stars to come join us.

>> Michael Grant:
All right, Dr. Poste, best of luck in the assignment, and we appreciate the information.

>> George Poste:
Good. Many thanks.

>> Merry Lucero:
Critical health care policy issues are facing Arizona in 2005 and beyond. We discuss what to do about the rising cost of health care, the uninsured and the shortage of health care workers in our state. Plus, Arizona Republic columnist Clay Thompson joins Michael Grant to talk about his new book, The Valley 101 Great Book of Life. Wednesday at 7:00 on "HORIZON".

>> Michael Grant:
Thursday, local economists join me to forecast the economic outlook for 2005. Then Friday, the journalist's roundtable. Thank you very much for joining us on this Tuesday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.

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