Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

Caught in the Web.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testified publicly and under oath before the commission investigating September 11; Rice acknowledged that President Bush had received a classified CIA briefing on August 6, 2001, entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States," though she characterized the report as "historical information based on old reporting." She also acknowledged that the report mentioned the existence of Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States but "there was no recommendation that we do something about this." Rice also admitted that Richard Clarke, whose book on the Bush Administration's antiterrorism failures prompted her public testimony, sent her a memo in January 2001 in which he mentioned sleeper cells. Again, Rice said, "there was no mention or recommendation of anything that needs to be done about them." Rice said that she couldn't remember whether she had ever mentioned the existence of the sleeper cells to the president prior to August 6.¹ The White House, under pressure from the commission, declassified the August 6 briefing, which in fact warned that Al Qaeda might be planning to hijack airplanes in the United States.² "That PDB said nothing about an attack on America," the president told reporters as he left church on Sunday.³ Administration officials insisted that the widespread uprising in Iraq, which appeared to show a new alliance between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, was not in fact a widespread uprising but rather a few isolated pockets of "thugs, gangs, and terrorists."⁴ Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, held a press conference: "We're trying to explain how things are going, and they are going as they are going," he said. "And this is a moment in Iraq's path toward a democratic and a free system. And it is one moment, and there will be other moments. And there will be good moments and there will be less good moments."⁵ American forces fired a missile into a mosque in Falluja,⁶ where six hundred Iraqis were reportedly killed this week, and two⁷ dead bodies, allegedly American intelligence agents, were shown on Arab television.⁸ President Bush went fishing.⁹ A Christian was crucified (for the 17th time) in the Philippines.¹⁰ Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, which produced three quarters of the world's opium last year, was said to be up 30 percent, and¹¹ President Hamid Karzai declared a jihad on drugs.¹²

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel let it be known that he will no longer be held to his promise not to kill Yasir Arafat.¹³ Secretary of State Colin Powell said that American prosecutors were thinking about prosecuting Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the recently deposed president of Haiti, for corruption; Powell rejected a call by the Caribbean Community for an investigation into the events surrounding Aristide's removal from Haiti. "I don't think any purpose would be served by such an inquiry," he said.¹⁴ The president of Ingushetia, a Russian republic, survived an assassination attempt, and¹⁵ Lithuania's parliament impeached President Rolandas Paksas.¹⁶ A Russian scientist was sentenced to 15 years for selling unclassified material to a British company that Russian authorities claim was a CIA front.¹⁷ Unrest continued in Uzbekistan, and police¹⁸ in Taiwan used water cannons on protesters.¹⁹ United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, who as the U.N. head of peacekeeping failed to intervene to stop the Rwandan genocide, said that the reports of massacres and rapes in Sudan "leave me with a deep sense of foreboding."²⁰ Illinois expressed regret for the lynching of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum in 1844 and the expulsion of the Mormons in 1846.²¹ Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California said that he would prefer state legislators to work part-time. "I like them when they're scrambling and they really have to work hard."²² People were dying of hunger in Zimbabwe.²³ Nepal banned public protests in Katmandu; 25,000²⁴ protesters defied the ban and many were arrested.²⁵ A federal air marshall left her loaded pistol on a shelf in a public restroom at the Cleveland, Ohio, airport near gate C-3; a passenger found the gun and immediately contacted the proper authorities.²⁶ A military lawyer for a Guantánamo Bay prisoner filed a civil lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the president's military tribunals.²⁷ Civil war broke out between two groups of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels.²⁸ A severed human head was found in a bag on a park bench in Honduras, where the government has been cracking down on street gangs; the bag also contained a note addressed to President Ricardo Maduro: "Maduro old man, we are so hungry we are eating people."²⁹ The head of Russia's Federal Security Service, formerly known as the KGB, was named head of the Russian Volleyball Association.³⁰ Tourism was up in the Middle East.³¹

The USDA rejected a request from a Kansas beef company that asked for permission to test all its cattle for mad cow disease; the decision was announced by the department's undersecretary for marketing and regulation.³² British researchers discovered a previously unknown prion disease among sheep.³³ The feral hog population in East Texas was out of control, wildlife scientists warned, and one rancher said he was afraid to let his children leave the yard.³⁴ Florida police arrested a nine-year-old girl for stealing a black-and-white bunny rabbit named Oreo, and the³⁵ British government proposed jailing people for merely associating with terror suspects.³⁶ Canada ordered the slaughter of 19 million chickens, turkeys, and ducks to stop the spread of bird flu.³⁷ Brazil said that it had gotten the destruction of the Amazon rain forest under control and that only 9,169 square miles (an area the size of Massachusetts) were destroyed last year.³⁸ Aventis Pasteur recalled its Imovax rabies vaccine because a live strain of the virus was found in one batch.³⁹ A new study concluded that Greenland's ice sheet could melt within a thousand years, which would raise sea level 23 feet, and⁴⁰ American scientists announced that frequent ejaculation can help prevent prostate cancer.⁴¹ Scientists discovered that regular consumption of pig whipworm eggs can cure inflammatory bowel disease.⁴² Self-assembling nano-tubes could be used to make better joints, scientists said.⁴³ A study found that teenage lesbians smoke too much.⁴⁴ Canada banned baby walkers, and a⁴⁵ Mexican woman performed a cesarean section on herself with a kitchen knife.⁴⁶