Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism official who has criticized the Bush Administration for its poor efforts at fighting terrorism and its misguided invasion of Iraq, appeared before the commission investigating September 11 and apologized for the government's and his own failure to prevent the attacks. President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice have all refused to testify publicly before the commission.¹ Bush Administration operatives were working very hard to discredit Clarke, and Condoleezza Rice agreed to speak with the 9/11 panel once again but not publicly and not under oath.² Rice did appear publicly on 60 Minutes and confirmed Clarke's claim, originally denied by the White House, that on September 12, 2001, President Bush ordered Clarke to focus on possible Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks, which the CIA had already concluded were carried out by Al Qaeda.³ Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons trafficking, said, "I do not believe that there's any evidence or any suggestion that President Musharraf was involved." Musharraf, for his part, denied that he had made a deal with the Americans to crack down on Al Qaeda in return for lenient treatment for selling nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya, Iran, and others; he also denied that his country's proliferation had done much harm. "If I hand over a missile or a bomb to any extremist, believe me, he can do nothing about it," Musharraf said. "He cannot explode it."⁴ India defeated Pakistan in a cricket tournament.⁵ Ukraine's minister of defense announced that quite a few missiles that were supposed to have been decommissioned after the fall of the Soviet Union were in fact lost. "Unfortunately strange things happen," he said. "We are currently looking for several hundred missiles."⁶ The Transportation Security Administration searched an American Airlines flight to Dallas after a psychic called in a warning that a bomb might be aboard the plane.⁷ People all over the world were astonished when President Bush, during a speech, showed a slide of himself looking under his desk and then joked: "Those weapons of mass destruction got to be here somewhere."⁸ Geneticists suggested that a mutation that weakened the jaw muscles of early humans 2.4 million years ago might have enabled the skull to grow larger to provide more space for the brain.⁹ Vampire bats attacked 20 people in Mansiche, Peru.¹⁰

Forty-nine retired U.S. generals and admirals signed a letter begging President Bush to delay spending billions of dollars on his untested and unnecessary missile defense shield and to spend the money instead to protect likely targets of terrorism such as U.S. ports and nuclear-weapons depots.¹¹ The Caribbean Community refused to recognize the new U.S.-backed government in Haiti because of questions about the circumstances under which Jean-Bertrand Aristide left office; the 15-nation group called for the United Nations to investigate Aristide's charges that he was abducted by the United States and forced to leave Haiti.¹² Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani warned the United Nations not to endorse the interim Iraqi constitution; the ayatollah¹³ was also said to be considering a fatwa declaring the new government illegitimate and condemning all Iraqis who take part in it.¹⁴ Poor people in Venezuela were said to be eating flamingos.¹⁵ Political violence continued in Kosovo, Gaza,¹⁶ Ivory Coast,¹⁷ Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan, Taiwan, Afghanistan,¹⁸ Thailand, and¹⁹ Syria;²⁰ there was unrest in Haiti, where armed gangs continued to terrorize the people;²¹ in Congo, where the government put down a coup attempt;²² and in France, where firefighters battled police during a strike over retirement benefits. The firefighters threw garbage cans, firecrackers, and smoke bombs; the police fired tear gas.²³ Israel's state prosecutor recommended that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon be indicted for taking bribes from a real-estate developer and submitted a draft indictment to the attorney general.²⁴ Police no longer need search warrants in Louisiana, an appeals court said, though the judgment was supposedly limited to "brief searches"; two dissenting judges denounced the ruling as the "road to Hell."²⁵ An elementary school in Oklahoma City suspended 125 of its 136 sixth graders for raising hell during lunch.²⁶

British researchers found that strange murders have increased in recent decades and that, contrary to expectations, the murders are not being committed by crazy people; most strange homicides, it was discovered, are committed by young men on drugs.²⁷ It was found that health-care lobbyists spent $237 million lobbying Congress in 2000, more than every other industry combined; drug companies spent $96 million, quite a bit more than other medical sectors.²⁸ The European Union fined Microsoft $613 million for abusing its "near monopoly" on personal computers.²⁹ Astrophysicists suggested that a highway of dark matter ripped from the dwarf galaxy Sagittarius, which is being consumed by the Milky Way, is streaming right through Earth.³⁰ A lamb was born in Hebron with "Allah" spelled out in Arabic on its flank; the lamb's owner said the animal was born on the day Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated. Some people claimed they could see the word "Muhammad" spelled out on the lamb's other side.³¹ People in Angola were beating and torturing their own children because they believe them to be sorcerers.³² Federal regulators issued a warning that antidepressant medication can drive some patients to suicide, and the³³ Army confirmed that the suicide rate has been higher among soldiers stationed in Iraq.³⁴ The FDA approved a quick saliva test for HIV, and researchers³⁵ announced that circumcised men are six to eight times less likely to contract the virus.³⁶ The Senate passed a bill making it a crime to harm a fetus while committing a violent crime.³⁷ A new study found that buckyballs can cause brain damage in fish, and sex³⁸ researchers found that impotent men for whom Viagra failed to work were severely distressed.³⁹ Benton County, Oregon, decided to stop issuing marriage licenses to heterosexuals.⁴⁰