Accompany iraq troops on attacks against specific isil targets, ill recommend that to the president. Woodruff those are some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by at bae systems, our pride and dedication show in everything we do; from Electronics Systems to intelligence analysis and cyber operations; from combat vehicles and weapons to the maintenance and modernization of ships, aircraft, and critical infrastructure. Knowing our work makes a difference inspires us everyday. Thats bae systems. Thats inspired work. Ive been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. The ones getting involved, staying engaged. They are not afraid to question the path theyre on. Because the one question they never want to ask is, how did i end up here . I started schwab with those people. People who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. And the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Woodruff the United States military is joining the fight to stop the spread of ebola in africa. President obama laid out the plan today to send 3,000 troops, amid increasingly dire forecasts of the epidemics potential to grow even worse. If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected with profound political, Economic Security implications for all of us. Woodruff the president traveled to atlanta this afternoon and the u. S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention to announce the rampedup american effort. Our forces are going to bring their expertise in command control, in logistics, in engineering. And our department of defense is better at that, our Armed Services is better at that than any organization on earth. Woodruff the focus is on helping overwhelmed local Health Care Systems across west africa. Under the president s plan, u. S. Forces will build 17 new Treatment Facilities in the region, each with 100 beds. The u. S. Military is also establishing an instruction facility to train up to 500 medical workers a week, deploying 65 officers to staff a hospital for treating Health Care Workers and airlifting hundreds of thousands of home health kits to the affected nations. While the president laid out that plan, Top Federal Health officials appeared at a Senate Hearing on the ebola threat. There is a window of opportunity to control the spread of this disease, but that window is closing. If we do not act now to stop ebola, we could be dealing with it for years to come, affecting larger areas of africa. Ebola is currently an epidemic the worst Ebola Outbreak in history. Woodruff in all, the virus has infected nearly 5,000 people across five countries and left more than half dead. In geneva today, the World Health Organization issued a stark new warning. With 5,000 now infected, twice the number when we met a couple of weeks ago. Over 2,500 dead, nearly twice the number of when we met a couple of weeks ago. You start to get a sense of the rapid escalation now were seeing of the virus at it moves from what was a linear increase in cases to now almost an exponential increase in cases. Woodruff the grim forecast envisions the number of cases doubling every three weeks. And from medical supplies to Health Worker salaries to burial costs the w. H. O estimates it will take nearly 1 billion to contain the outbreak. Thats a nearly tenfold increase from a month ago. The reason for that is the outbreak in last months has doubled in size. And we realize, because its going to go on doubling in that sort of frequency if we dont deal with it, the amounts requested have increased dramatically. Woodruff in addition to the u. S. Response, china today dispatched a mobile laboratory and 59 medical experts to sierra leone to help speed up testing. Well examine the president s ebola plan in detail after the news summary. In afghanistan, a taliban suicide bomber killed three nato troops in kabul. Nearly 20 other soldiers and civilians were wounded. The car bomb went off near the u. S. Embassy in kabul, leaving behind mangled vehicles and debris. Reuters reported two of the dead were americans. The other was polish. In iraq, the u. S. Military has expanded its air strikes against Islamic State forces. Planes hit targets just outside baghdad last night for the first time. Iraqi military officials said today its just the beginning. translated through the joint air cell between america and Baghdad Operations command, the american airstrikes started yesterday targeting chosen objectives in southern baghdad. The joint air cell will outline the targets. By so doing, the airstrikes are aimed at liquidating all islamic militants in the areas nearby baghdad. Woodruff meanwhile, political infighting in the Iraqi Parliament kept two key cabinet posts in limbo. Lawmakers rejected nominees for the defense and interior ministers. Ukraine made a landmark deal with the European Union today, shifting closer to the west and away from russia. Parliament cheered ratification of that agreement, but it went behind closed doors to approve two laws that could spark opposition in ukraine. Those measures are part of a peace deal that produced a ceasefire this month. They grant temporary selfrule to prorussian regions and offer amnesty to rebels. Back in this country, crews mopped up a Northern California fire that wiped out part of a small town yesterday. The fire swept into weed near the oregon border and damaged or destroyed 100 homes and other buildings. Today, the charred remnants of homes and two churches were still smoldering. Firefighters hosed down the blackened landscape, as residents counted their losses. The house up there, it can be rebuilt, its no big deal. But this is my family church, you know . Its. Much more endearing to me. Woodruff in all, at least a dozen fires were burning in california, fueled by severe drought. The Environmental Protection agency is allowing more time for comment on a major step aimed at global warming. Americans will have another 45 days to address curbs on Carbon Dioxide emissions from coal fired power plants. This step follows a request from 53 u. S. Senators. The e. P. A said today it still expects to have final rules by next summer. Congressional republicans charged today that federal safety regulators missed spotting ignition switch problems in General Motors cars for seven years. The accusation in a report by the house of representatives targeted the national highway Traffic Safety administration. The report also alleged the agency did not understand how air bags worked, and failed to share vital information. In economic news, nasa chose boeing and spacex to build capsules that will ferry astronauts to the space station, starting in 2017. And on wall street, the Dow Jones Industrial average gained more than 100 points to close near 17,132. The nasdaq rose almost 34 points to close above 4,552. And the s p 500 added nearly 15 points, to finish just under 1,999. Still to come on the newshour how effective will new u. S. Aid be in the fight against ebola . The military wont rule out the use of american troops to battle the Islamic State group, turbulence in the middle east causes thousands of refugees to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea, we travel to iowa for a look at one of the nations closest senate races, how to transform the way we teach educators in the u. S. And the 17yearold pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai answers American Teens questions about education. Woodruff lets dive deeper now into the president s plan to ramp up the response to the Ebola Outbreak and to try preventing a humanitarian catastrophe. It comes amid prior criticism of the administration along with the w. H. O and of other countries for not doing more and for not getting it done faster. We turn back to two who have been closely watching this and speaking with government officials in recent days. Laurie garrett of the council on Foreign Relations and has written widely about ebola, including the books, betrayal of trust and the coming plague and Lawrence Gostin of georgetown university. Hes the director of the Oneil Institute for national and Global Health law. We welcome both of you back to the program. Laurie garrett, to you first. What is your assessment of the president s plan that he outlined today . Well, its a bold step forward. Im delighted its actually taking place, but i think everything depends on the haste with which we can mobilize. And i am aphrase a lot of people dont understand that committing troops and saying were going to build a hospital are all very good steps, but it takes weeks to execute these things, and in the meantime, the epidemic is doubling every 10 to 20 days. We dont have a lot of time. Were racing against a clock. Woodruff Lawrence Gostin, do you have the same concerns . Whats your assessment . I think laurie is right about timing. I am very proud of my country. We have stepped forward when no one else would or could, but there are major unanswered questions. Its not just time, but also command and control. Theres chaos on the ground. Its uncoordinated. I was very pleased to see the president say that we have a command post, but how are we going to command chinese or cuban workers . I do think we need a u. N. Security Council Resolution to have the kind of International Legitimacy we need. Woodruff so going beyond what the u. S. Yes, the u. S. Cant do it alone. Woodruff let me go further with what the u. S. Is doing. You said youre proud of your country. What specifically will make the most difference here . I think the most difference will be training the Health Workers and Building Health facilities in the community, contact tracing, all of those things are very important. Woodruff meaning going back and finding out. Going back, finding out who has been in contact with whom and quickly isolating them in safe conditions. One of the big problems, though, is that even once we have built these Treatment Facilities, its going to be handed over eventually to the ministry of health in liberia, and they just dont have the Health Workers, the doctors and the nurses have been decimated. We really do have a huge infrastructure task. Woodruff laurie garrett, you laid out your concerns, but of what has been announced, how do you see this unfolding and making any difference . Well, first of all, we dont have any commercial flights landing in the area now. And so just getting doctors on the ground, getting medical supplies, keeping stocks in place of such simple things as latex gloves to protect you from infection have all proven daunting in the absence of real solidarity from neighboring countries and the willingness to have planes land and commercial flights. So one huge role for the u. S. Military is going to be helping ghana, which has kindly and generally is agreed to be the air bridge for all supplies and Human Movement into the area, to extend their runway, build their airport up, have logistic and supply operations in place and then to have smaller flights go from ghana into specific targeted areas carrying supplies with them as needed. But larry points out a crucial problem with all of. This we dont have a central command, which means we dont even have a centralized list of whats needed. Who needs latex gloves where . Is the swear more dire in this country in cerro sierra leone on this county in liberia . Where do we need to deploy people first . We dont have that kind of operation in place, and our u. S. Military is not going to play that role. We will have a central command, but it will be commanding u. S. Military personnel, not people from other countries and certainly mott the liberians themselves. And we also see that the response is not a regional one. We are unfortunately dividing our response according to kind of old colonial ties. So the french are focusing on guinea, which used to be a french colony. The United Kingdom is focused on sierra leone, which is settled by the decent dependents of british slaves, who came from the caribbean, and were focused on liberia, which is settled by former american slaves. So theres a sort of distasteful neocleanal feel neocolonial feel to things, and that means responses are very divided by country, so youve heard of 165 cuban responders and 59 chinese. Theyre all going to sierra leone where they will be under we dont know what kind of command, loosely coordinated by the sierra leone government. Woodruff Lawrence Gostin, this sounds like a complicated effort, which we knew, but it sounds even more complicated listening to the two of you. What about the timing . How long will it take to make a difference to get to the people who need treatment and who are not receiving it . First of all, we are very late to the game. The fire has nearly burned the house down and weve arrived. The cavalry has arrived. It will take a long time i think to build the kind of facilities that we want. The whole idea, for example, that were sending 500,000 home kits suggests that we cant get people into hospitals quick enough to treat them and isolate them, and people who. Woodruff these are selftesting kits . These are selftesting kits or selfprotecting kits. Im not sure the community will know what to do with them when they get them. This is a makeshift response to a huge humanitarian crisis. I dont think it had to come to this, but now that were there, im really grad the see the United States military involved. Woodruff so laurie garrett, should we be pleased that this is happening or more worried because its not the holistic response that i heard you describing thats necessary . Look, im delighted, like larry, to see my country step up to the plate and play a role, and im hoping that we can save lots and lots and lots of lives and bring this epidemic under control, but i agree completely. Were late to the game. And if you just do the math, based on the statement made today by who, a doubling time every ten to 21 days, and you take the number of actually identified and suspected cases existing now and do your math, you can see that if we cant get a response on the ground immediately, effectively across the region, we will be looking at a quarter of a million cases by thanksgiving, and 400,000 by christmas if this is not abated and brought under control. Then were talking about something equivalent to the black deaths impact on tuscany and florence in 1346. Woodruff sobering. Sobering any which way you look at it. We appreciate both of you joining us, laurie garrett, Lawrence Gostin. Thank you. Woodruff one country in west africa that has had relative success in controlling the deadly virus so far is nigeria. While the nation has had 21 confirmed and suspected cases of the virus, including seven deaths, it has not had an explosive surge and spread since its first ebola victim was reported in late july. Our special correspondent fred de sam lazaro is on assignment in lagos and checked in with us earlier today. Nigeria is africas most populace country. It has the largest economy on the continent and its commercial capital, lagos, has 20 million inhabitant, all of which have raised concerns that an Ebola Outbreak would be catastrophic, but that hasnt happened, in part due to an early break and in large part due the a Good Public Health response, experts say. The virus was first brought the nigeria by a liberian traveler who fell ill at the airport and in a peculiar twist of fate, medical doctors were on strike when he was taken in for health care. That exposed far fewer Health Workers to the virus, and Health Care Workers have been especially hard hit during this epidemic. Theyve contracted the virus and theyve passed it on to their patients. Despite its reputation for chaos and dysfunction, nigeria has launched a very sophisticated response to ebola. Everyone entering the country, including this reporter when we arrived yesterday at the airport, is screened for any symptoms. Those with an elevated fever, for example, are taken in for secondary screening to make sure its not related to ebola. So the call center where people can report suspected cases and a concerted Public Awareness campaign that has kept fear from turning into panic and a sophisticated Surveillance System has enabled this country to trace and keep track of all cases and people with whom they came into contact. All of these cases have been directly traced to that original index case of the liberian traveler. This is reassuring, but at a time when theres so much travel and when the virus is running amuck in other parts of west africa, nigeria is nowhere near being able to declare victory. A lot of fingers are still crossed tightly here.