Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

President George W. Bush staged a handshake between the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers at a summit meeting in Jordan.¹ President Bush, Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, and King Abdullah II of Jordan stood outdoors together in the hot sun wearing suits and ties but were kept free of unsightly perspiration by tubes installed by White House operatives that blasted cold air from an ultra-quiet air conditioner that was hidden nearby.² Sharon and Abbas read statements about the "road map" to peace that were largely written by American officials.³ "I think when you analyze the statements, you'll find them to be historic," Bush told reporters later. "Amazing things were said."⁴ Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade responded to the summit with a joint attack on an Israeli military outpost in Gaza, killing four soldiers.⁵ Elsewhere, in the West Bank, Israeli forces shot a seven-year-old Palestinian girl in the abdomen.⁶ President Bush flew over Iraq shortly after he told U.S. troops in Qatar that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction would eventually be found. "We're on the look," he said. "We'll reveal the truth."⁷ Officials said that the president did not set foot in Iraq because the situation on the ground was too risky. There were also concerns that such a visit would appear too "imperial."⁸ The president was photographed rubbing a soldier's big bald head.⁹ The two top editors of the New York Times resigned in disgrace.¹⁰ A Lutheran minister in Denmark was suspended from his job for saying that "there is no heavenly God, there is no eternal life, there is no resurrection."¹¹ A brothel in Nevada was offering free sex to American soldiers.¹²

Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector for the United Nations, said that the quality of American intelligence on Iraq was very poor and suggested that the American and British governments had "jumped to conclusions" about weapons of mass destruction.¹³ A growing number of weapons experts, engineers, chemists, and other scientists said that the "germ trailers" trumpeted by the Americans are not at all what one would expect from a mobile weapons lab and that the units appear to be designed to produce hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, which is what Iraqi scientists have claimed. It was reported that the British sold such a system to Iraq in 1987.¹⁴ Two of the highest-ranking Al Qaeda leaders in United States custody denied that Al Qaeda had worked with the Iraqi government.¹⁵ The British government admitted that Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's director of communications, wrote a letter to the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service apologizing for a report, "Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation," which contained material that was plagiarized from an old out-of-date term paper found on the Internet. Campbell promised to take "greater care" in the future.¹⁶ Douglas Feith, an undersecretary at the Pentagon, denied what he called the "urban legends" that the Pentagon lied about Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction or that intelligence analysts were pressured to come up with slanted reports. "I can't rule out what other people may have perceived," he said. "Who knows what people perceive? I know of nobody who pressured anybody."^{17 18} Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, said he expected the weapons to turn up eventually and pointed out that it took the FBI five years to catch Eric Rudolph. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, blamed it all on Bill Clinton.¹⁹ International weapons inspectors were wondering why American troops failed to stop Iraqi villagers who live near Tuwaitha nuclear complex from dumping uranium yellowcake and nuclear sludge on the ground and using the empty radioactive barrels to haul drinking and bathing water; one woman from a nearby village called Al Mansiya ("The Forgotten") wondered why so many journalists were coming to visit. "We are like a string of beads that has been cut, and all the beads are on the floor," she told a reporter. "We love the Americans, but we loved Saddam because he was our father. He was the tent over us — he was the string in our beads."²⁰

An internal study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that about 25 percent of the country's biggest industrial and water-treatment plants routinely violate pollution standards and that the agency does too little to correct the situation.²¹ The Federal Communications Commission voted to relax restrictions on media ownership.²² Tom DeLay, the House Majority Leader, killed a Democratic attempt to extend a new tax credit to 6.5 million low-income families who were left out of President Bush's latest tax cut. "There are a lot of things that are more important than that," DeLay said. "To me, it's a little difficult to give tax relief to people that don't pay income tax."²³ The General Accounting Office warned that government is using "immature technology" in its missile defense shield, which is scheduled to be deployed by 2004.²⁴ It was announced that U.S. troops will be pulled back from the "tripwire" along the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.²⁵ Thailand was in trouble with the Bush Administration for its lukewarm support for the war on terrorism. "It is not enough to be with us in the war on terrorism," said an official. "You have to trumpet it."²⁶ Episcopalians in New Hampshire elected an openly gay bishop.²⁷ The U.S. Air Guitar Championships were held at the Pussycat Lounge in New York City.²⁸ A federal appeals court ruled that video games are protected by the First Amendment.²⁹ The unemployment rate rose to 6.1 percent.³⁰ A small airplane dropped from the sky over Los Angeles and landed on an apartment building.³¹ A new study by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that anti-American sentiment was at an all-time high in the Muslim world.³² Martha Stewart was indicted for securities fraud and resigned as CEO of her company.³³ Pet prairie dogs were spreading monkeypox in the American Midwest.³⁴