Flexible Reality
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Where's the Apology?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times
Published: January 30, 2004
George Bush promised to bring honor and integrity back to the White House. Instead, he got rid of accountability.
Surely even supporters of the Iraq war must be dismayed by the administration's reaction to David Kay's recent statements. Iraq, he now admits, didn't have W.M.D., or even active programs to produce such weapons. Those much-ridiculed U.N. inspectors were right. (But Hans Blix appears to have gone down the memory hole. On Tuesday Mr. Bush declared that the war was justified — under U.N. Resolution 1441, no less — because Saddam "did not let us in.")
So where are the apologies? Where are the resignations? Where is the investigation of this intelligence debacle? All we have is bluster from Dick Cheney, evasive W.M.D.-related-program-activity language from Mr. Bush — and a determined effort to prevent an independent inquiry.
True, Mr. Kay still claims that this was a pure intelligence failure. I don't buy it: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has issued a damning report on how the threat from Iraq was hyped, and former officials warned of politicized intelligence during the war buildup. (Yes, the Hutton report gave Tony Blair a clean bill of health, but many people — including a majority of the British public, according to polls — regard that report as a whitewash.)
In any case, the point is that a grave mistake was made, and America's credibility has been badly damaged — and nobody is being held accountable. But that's standard operating procedure. As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths. And administration officials have consistently sought to freeze out, undermine or intimidate anyone who might try to check up on their performance.
Let's look at three examples. First is the Valerie Plame affair. When someone in the administration revealed that Ms. Plame was an undercover C.I.A. operative, one probable purpose was to intimidate intelligence professionals. And whatever becomes of the Justice Department investigation, the White House has been notably uninterested in finding the culprit. ("We have let the earthmovers roll in over this one," a senior White House official told The Financial Times.)
Then there's the stonewalling about 9/11. First the administration tried, in defiance of all historical precedents, to prevent any independent inquiry. Then it tried to appoint Henry Kissinger, of all people, to head the investigative panel. Then it obstructed the commission, denying it access to crucial documents and testimony. Now, thanks to all the delays and impediments, the panel's head says it can't deliver its report by the original May 11 deadline — and the administration is trying to prevent a time extension.
Finally, an important story that has largely evaded public attention: the effort to prevent oversight of Iraq spending. Government agencies normally have independent, strictly nonpartisan inspectors general, with broad powers to investigate questionable spending. But the new inspector general's office in Iraq operates under unique rules that greatly limit both its powers and its independence.
And the independence of the Pentagon's own inspector general's office is also in question. Last September, in a move that should have caused shock waves, the administration appointed L. Jean Lewis as the office's chief of staff. Ms. Lewis played a central role in the Whitewater witch hunt (seven years, $70 million, no evidence of Clinton wrongdoing); nobody could call her nonpartisan. So when Mr. Bush's defenders demand hard proof of profiteering in Iraq — as opposed to extensive circumstantial evidence — bear in mind that the administration has systematically undermined the power and independence of institutions that might have provided that proof.
And there are many more examples. These people politicize everything, from military planning to scientific assessments. If you're with them, you pay no penalty for being wrong. If you don't tell them what they want to hear, you're an enemy, and being right is no excuse.
Still, the big story isn't about Mr. Bush; it's about what's happening to America. Other presidents would have liked to bully the C.I.A., stonewall investigations and give huge contracts to their friends without oversight. They knew, however, that they couldn't. What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things?
Hill Probers Fault Iraq Intelligence
Panels' Early Findings Are Similar to Kay's
By Dana Priest and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 30, 2004; Page A01
The House and Senate intelligence committees have unearthed a series of failures in prewar intelligence on Iraq similar to those identified by former weapons inspector David Kay, leading them to believe that CIA analysts and their superiors did not seriously consider the possibility Saddam Hussein no longer possessed weapons of mass destruction, congressional officials said.
The committees, working separately for the past seven months, have determined that the CIA relied too heavily on circumstantial, outdated intelligence and became overly dependent on satellite and spy-plane imagery and communications intercepts.
Like Kay, the committees have found that CIA operatives and analysts failed to detect that the Iraqi chain of command for developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons had fallen apart, and that Iraqi scientists and others were engaged in their own campaign to deceive the Iraqi leader, telling him they had weapons that did not exist.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Plan B pill would cut costs, pregnancies
By Dar Haddix
UPI Business Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- If the Food and Drug Administration gives its approval, over-the-counter sales of the emergency contraception known colloquially as the morning after pill, or "Plan B," could finally give women, especially poor and rural women, an affordable way to prevent pregnancy in an emergency. The progestin-only drug levonorgestrel will come for approval by the FDA on Feb. 20 for over-the-counter dispensing after an advisory committee earlier recommended its approval by a vote of 22-5.
Right now only five states -- Washington, California, Hawaii, Alaska, and New Mexico -- allow sales of Plan B without a prescription. "Being able to go directly into a pharmacy and being able to buy this directly over the counter ... will have the potential to cut in half the number of unintended pregnancies," said Sharon Camp, president and chief executive officer of the Alan Guttmacher Institute in Washington, D.C., which tracks sexual health trends.
Emergency contraception prevented an estimated 100,000 unintended pregnancies and an estimated 51,000 abortions in the year 2000 alone, according to the institute. Plan B works by delivering .75 milligrams of levonorgestrel, a progestin hormone -- about three times the dose in a daily birth control pill -- in each of two pills taken 12 hours apart no more than three days after sexual intercourse.
Available by prescription in the United States since 1999, Plan B currently costs around $20-25, said Carol Cox, spokesperson for Barr Laboratories Inc. of Woodcliff, N.J. That is less than one-tenth the average cost of a first-trimester surgical or medical abortion. Cox said that Barr Labs had not yet settled on a price at which to sell the drug over the counter, but a report on FDA.com estimated that it would sell for between $30 and $40.
A prohibition on Medicaid funding and a dearth of state funding programs prevent many poor women who desire an abortion from having one. But emergency contraception needs to be taken quickly -- it's 95 percent effective if taken within 24 hours of unprotected sex -- so waiting for a prescription or driving long distances to a clinic could mean abortion instead of prevention.
This is why over-the-counter access would also benefit rural women. As of 2000, only 3 percent of all non-metropolitan counties had an abortion provider, and 94 percent of all abortion providers were in metropolitan counties. Nearly one in four women obtaining an abortion in 2000 traveled more than 50 miles; 8 percent traveled more than 100 miles, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Offering the drug over-the-counter would solve the problem of some hospitals not offering the drug to rape victims. An estimated 32,000 women per year get pregnant due to rape or incest, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Only California, Washington, New Mexico and New York have state laws that guarantee rape victims access to emergency contraception. Also, some pharmacies, including Wal-Mart don't carry the drug.
The fact that women do most of the shopping in pharmacies will hurt those pharmacies that don't carry Plan B, Camp said. "Pharmacies that refuse to carry Plan B are going to lose business to the pharmacies that do. This is a product that is so important to women. ... If pharmacists choose to offend women by not carrying something that important, they will lose business to their competitor down the street," she said.
Carol Cox, spokesperson for Barr, described the company as "very committed to female health care," and that it sees Plan B as a "commitment to female health overall." In the end, Camp said she believes that Plan B will be approved. With a few exceptions, "The support of the medical community is virtually unanimous," she said.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Race Shifts From Personal to National
By David S. Broder
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 27, 2004; 9:37 PM
John Kerry prevailed, Howard Dean survived -- and the Democratic presidential contest between the two New Englanders now moves to a set of southern and border states where many Democrats think John Edwards may pose the biggest challenge to Kerry's strong claim on the nomination.
China to issue new intelligent ID cards
Xinhuanet Online
www.chinaview.cn 2004-01-28 09:28:23
BEIJING, Jan. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- China is planning to issue new intelligent ID cards for its 1.3 billion people, and some citizens will be issued computer readable cards as early as March. According to officials with the Ministry of Public Security, the new ID card will hopefully be an effective way of preventing rampant forging of old ID cards in use.
The new card contains a module that integrates a special chip containing information on the card holder. The chip-module was jointly developed by the Institute of Microelectronics under elite Qinghua University and Qinghua Tongfang Microelectronics Co. Ltd., a subsidiary controlled by Qinghua University.
According to ministry officials, the thumbnail-sized module will make the new card greatly superior as information within the module can be read and processed by computer. This will greatly increase security because police can use a card processing machine to check if information in a new card matches a preset code storedin the machine.
The information stored in the chip includes digital data for management and anti-counterfeiting. The new ID card, 85.6 mm by 54 mm, will be put into use in March in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Changsha, according to ministry officials. The ministry expects that the nationwide replacement program will be fully completed by the end of 2008 when a total of 1 billion ID cards will be given out.
General Urges NATO to Send Afghanistan More Troops
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
NY Times
Published: January 28, 2004
WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 — NATO's top commander in Europe voiced frustration on Tuesday that members were not providing enough troops for the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan, which he said was a "defining moment" for the alliance as it adopted a broader agenda in the world. In testimony intended to bring members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee up to date on Afghanistan, the commander, Gen. James L. Jones of the United States Marine Corps, said NATO's plans to expand beyond the capital, Kabul, and the northern area of Kunduz would require more troops than the current 5,500.
He said he expected the number of United States troops in Afghanistan — 11,000, most of them involved in counterterrorism — to remain the same. "The political will has been stated," he said. "The alliance has agreed, the donor countries have been identified, and yet we find ourselves mired in the administrative details of who's going to pay for it, who's going to transport it, how's it going to be maintained."
The rebuilding of Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 involves NATO's first mission beyond the European Atlantic area. Unlike the war on Iraq, this effort has been embraced by NATO's European members. The alliance's new secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, has called Afghanistan its "No. 1 priority." During the testimony, senators from both parties expressed concern that the Bush administration might become distracted with Iraq and fail to solidify the gains made in Afghanistan in health care, education, women's rights and road building.
"Are we winning or losing?" asked Senator Richard G. Lugar, an Indiana Republican and the committee chairman. "Why should we have confidence this is going to work out?" Security has not been established in huge swaths of the country, and the Taliban are resurgent along the Pakistan border. President Hamid Karzai is still trying to wrest control from provincial governors. Congress approved a total of $1.6 billion in aid for Afghanistan in 2004. President Bush is expected to ask for $1 billion more in his 2005 budget request next week.
Note: Some creative chartmaking above...look carefully, and then go to the OMB and see what their charts look like.
