Weekly Review

Preparing for a potential strike against Iraq, the United States plucked Vice President Dick Cheney out of hiding and sent him touring Arabia to summon support from the region’s leaders. In the meantime, a special envoy was sent to Israel to make peace between Ariel Sharon… Read More

The Pentagon’s top-secret “Nuclear Posture Review” was leaked to the press. The document describes situations in which nuclear weapons might be used in a first strike on Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, or North Korea. There was concern that the Bush Administration was trying to redefine nuclear weaponry… Read More

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a preliminary finding that virtually every American living in the United States since 1951 has been exposed to nuclear fallout: “All organs and tissues of the body have received some radiation exposure,” the report said. The fallout, which resulted from… Read More

The Pentagon said it was planning a new propaganda office called the Office of Strategic Information, which will seek to feed news items to the foreign media in an effort to manipulate public opinion. Such items will not necessarily be true. The plan also calls for computer network… Read More

Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate that President Bush had decided to overthrow Iraq’sSaddam Hussein but had not yet settled on a strategy and was considering his options. The administration was reportedly planning to create an “inspection crisis” by demanding that Iraq… Read More

President Bush released his $2.13 trillion budget, which includes a massive arms buildup and severe cuts in popular domestic programs as well as additional tax cuts for the wealthy. The Pentagon complained that it needed more money. New government statistics revealed that the number of Americans making more than… Read More

More than 100 soldiers in the Israeli army reserve signed a petition declaring their refusal to serve in the Occupied Territories. “The price of occupation is the army’s loss of its human image and the corruption of all Israeli society.” The soldiers said they had in the past received… Read More

Attorney General John Ashcroft, offended at being repeatedly photographed in the Justice Department’s Great Hall with a large naked breast near his head, covered two partially nude Art Deco statues, the Spirit of Justice and the Majesty of Justice, with drapes. Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense,… Read More

The Enron scandal continued to unfold. Arthur Andersen and Company, the big accounting firm that served simultaneously as consultant and auditor for the Texas energy company, admitted that it had destroyed thousands of Enron-related documents. President Bush told some lies about his relationship with Kenneth Lay,… Read More

The United States Department of Justice appointed a special criminal task force to investigate the collapse of Enron, the Texas oil company. Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation, as did the entire United States Attorney’s office in Houston, because of conflicts of interest. Read More

General Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, walked up to President Atal Behari Vajpayee of India and shook his hand at a meeting in Katmandu; Vajpayee then gave a speech denouncing Pakistan’s empty gestures. Indian troops fired at their Pakistani counterparts across the Line of Control in Kashmir. Officials… Read More

President George W. Bush held a news conference down at the ranch in Crawford, Texas, and again defended his plan to use military courts to try terrorism suspects: “One thing is for certain,” he said, “whatever the procedures are for the military tribunals, our system will be… Read More

India recalled its ambassador to Pakistan and threatened to go to war if Pakistan did not stop sponsoring terrorist groups such as Jaish-e-Muhammad, which attacked India’s parliament building last week. Pakistan denied involvement in the attack, but a captured member of the group… Read More

The White House announced that the anthrax used in recent mail attacks probably originated in the United States; Army officials confirmed that the bacteria was a genetic match with anthrax in the Army’s stockpile but pointed out that their supply had come from the… Read More

The Taliban surrendered Kandahar, the last Afghan city under its control, to a loose confederation of warlords, who immediately began fighting among themselves and looting stores. Afghan refugees, particularly children, were dying in great numbers; Uzbekistan finally agreed to allow humanitarian aid to cross its… Read More

President Bush sent an envoy to Israel with the aim of restarting peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. Hamas proved that it still has the power to prevent such negotiations by sending a wave of suicide bombers into Israel, which culminated in a double… Read More

Advanced Cell Technology Inc. of Worcester, Massachusetts, announced that it had cloned a human embryo in order to mine it for stem cells; the company said that it had taken “extreme measures” to prevent the embryo from being placed in a womb. Independent experts dismissed the cloning… Read More

A newspaper review of the ballots cast in Florida’s presidential election found that Al Gore probably received more votes than George W. Bush, who this week signed an executive order that will permit the government to use military courts to try foreigners accused of… Read More

Attorney General John Ashcroft approved a new emergency policy that will allow the government to monitor conversations between federal prisoners and their lawyers and to read such mail. The president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers denounced the policy as “an abomination” that violates the… Read More

President George W. Bush signed an executive order that will allow him to block the release of 68,000 pages of Ronald Reagan’s presidential papers and to retain control of his own documents, which are supposed to be released 12 years after he leaves office; there was speculation that… Read More

Congress passed the USA Patriot Act, a major antiterrorism bill that will greatly increase the power of the federal government to spy on citizens and potential terrorists. Senator Russell Feingold cast the only dissenting vote in the Senate; he argued that the bill’s language was… Read More

President Bush, who has taken to using the phrase “the Bush doctrine” to describe his war on terrorism, collected $1 donations from American schoolchildren to help feed starving Afghan refugee children. He praised a young girl from Virginia who raised $45 by feeding chickens. Read More

The United Nations suspended its food convoys into Afghanistan because of the American bombing campaign. U.S. forces dropped over 100,000 yellow ration packets into Afghanistan, where there are thought to be 7.5 million people facing starvation. Each packet, decorated with an American flag, contains… Read More

America and Britain fired cruise missiles and dropped bombs on targets in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden taunted the United States in a televised statement and said, “America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before all the army of… Read More

Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor told a New York audience that “we’re likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country.” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer denounced television personality Bill Maher for saying that firing cruise… Read More

President George W. Bush declared that all the nations of the earth must choose sides in the coming crusade against terrorism, and he promised to attack Afghanistan if its leaders refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the famous terrorist, whom the President has described as… Read More

Terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and damaged the Pentagon using hijacked commercial airliners. Bodies rained down on the streets, soon followed by tons of concrete, marble, and steel. The Bush Administration abandoned the White House. The President was hiding out… Read More

Bush Administration officials contradicted previous statements that they would let China build up its nuclear arsenal if Beijing would simply drop its objections to the missile-defense boondoggle. Russia was beginning to approach the subject with a certain irony. “If they have the money to build… Read More

Forensic experts in Honduras found a mass grave containing 15 bodies on a former American military base used to train Nicaraguan Contras; prosecutors expect to find up to 80 dead leftists who disappeared during the 1980s. John Negroponte, who was the American ambassador to Honduras during the Contra… Read More

The Bush Administration announced that by next month the government surplus, excluding Social Security, will be closer to $600 million than the $122 billion it calculated back in April. President Bush hailed the disappearing surplus as “incredibly positive news,” because it will force the… Read More