Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

North Korea announced its intention to accelerate its program to build a nuclear deterrent and said that a U.S. naval blockade or embargo could lead to "all-out war"; a state-run newspaper said that "the Iraqi war proved that disarmament leads to war. Therefore it is quite clear that the DPRK can never accept the U.S. demand that it scrap its nuclear weapons program first."¹ President Bush declared that the world will not tolerate nuclear weapons in Iran. "Iran would be dangerous," he said, "if they have a nuclear weapon."² The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence made a deal to conduct a "review" of the Bush Administration's handling of intelligence on Iraq but only if Democrats agreed not to call it an "investigation."³ Stansfield Turner, a former director of central intelligence, criticized the Bush Administration for its use of intelligence to justify the conquest of Iraq: "There is no question in my mind [that policymakers] distorted the situation, either because they had bad intelligence or because they misinterpreted it."⁴ John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, was more blunt: "If Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be 'a high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony 'to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.'"⁵ Other mainstream commentators were also beginning to use the word "impeachment" in connection with the weapons of mass destruction scandal.⁶ American soldiers in Iraq were being killed at a rate of one per day.⁷

The Justice Department announced that it had arrested a Muslim truck driver from Ohio who has admitted to working with Al Qaeda, and officials said that he was planning to attack the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch.⁸ One hundred seventy pounds of cesium 137 and strontium 90 were found in a taxi in Tbilisi, Georgia,⁹ and 30 kilograms of cesium 137 were recovered from an unemployed schoolteacher in Bangkok who was trying to sell the material to terrorists. "Cesium 137 is serious stuff, highly radioactive," said one expert. "You put it alongside four kilograms or more of dynamite and you've got a really dangerous terror weapon."¹⁰ Los Alamos National Laboratory admitted that it had lost two glass vials of plutonium oxide and said that the radioactive material might have been thrown in the garbage.¹¹ The International Atomic Energy Agency reprimanded Iran for its refusal to comply with an agreement on nuclear safeguards and called for the country to accept stricter inspections.¹² Massachusetts repealed its "clean elections" law.¹³ Attorney General John Ashcroft asked journalists to help convince the American people that the U.S.A. Patriot Act, the antiterrorism law that gave sweeping new powers to federal law enforcement agencies, is really a good thing.¹⁴ President Bush issued guidelines banning racial profiling except in cases of terrorism and national security.¹⁵

The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians continued to move forward: Israel assassinated a Hamas leader;¹⁶ Palestinian snipers killed a seven-year-old Israeli girl and wounded her five-year-old sister and her father;¹⁷ a suicide bomber blew up a grocery store in a small farming town in northern Israel, killing the owner.¹⁸ There were riots in Benton Harbor, Michigan, where black residents have long complained of police harassment, after a motorcyclist died during a police chase.¹⁹ Several Iranians set themselves on fire to protest the arrest in Paris of 165 members of the People's Mujahedeen, an Iranian opposition group.²⁰ Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader who was taken into "protective custody" by the military government of Myanmar, turned 58. It was reported that Suu Kyi has not been given a change of clothing since she was detained three weeks ago.²¹ Russia's Duma, the lower house of parliament, passed a bill that would allow the government to shut down news organizations that publish "biased" election campaign coverage.²² Senator Orrin Hatch said that he favored the development of technology that would automatically destroy the computers of people who violate copyright restrictions. It was then discovered that Hatch's own website makes use of pirated software.²³ Al Gore was reportedly planning to start a cable television network.²⁴ President Bush raised $3.5 million in one night, possibly a new record.²⁵ The new Harry Potter book sold about 5 million copies in one day; the author, J. K. Rowling, was said to be richer than the Queen of England.²⁶ Scientists created a genetically engineered grass that doesn't cause hay fever.²⁷ Other genetic engineers came up with coffee plants that produce up to 70 percent less caffeine.²⁸ A naked headless corpse was found near the castle Frankenstein in Germany.²⁹ A nine-year-old girl in an Indian village married a dog to avoid a bad omen.³⁰ New Zealand proposed a tax on flatulent livestock.³¹