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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (5559)	10/17/2003 1:51:12 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

The energy bill After years of effort and untold hours of negotiations, lawmakers appear (as we go to press) to have reached substantive agreement on the language of the comprehensive energy bill. It is critical that the remaining issues be resolved, and that the bill be sent to the president as soon as possible. Although it does not contain as many production provisions as it might, its passage will improve the nation's energy posture (and thus its security) substantially. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert stepped in after the bill's building consensus threatened to collapse. Fearing that further delay would mean failure, they rightly insisted that the bill be comprehensive and that it be finished promptly. To resolve the remaining issues, they held a series of meetings this week. Mr. Frist and Minority Leader Tom Daschle apparently solved their differences at one meeting, and the rest were largely settled at a meeting of House and Senate leadership yesterday afternoon. (Although the possibility still exists that Senate Democrats may filibuster the conference report, notwithstanding Mr. Daschle's apparent support of the bill.) Disagreements were sharp on subsidies for the Alaska natural gas pipeline, rules for the electricity grid and liability protection for manufacturers of the fuel additive MTBE. The Alaska delegation requested a series of subsidies, including a taxpayer-funded floor on the price of natural gas for the pipeline. However, the price supports were opposed by House Republicans and the administration, and so will not be in the final bill. Splits in the Republican conference over the bill's electricity titles were largely averted. MTBE apparently caused the greatest contention, with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay determined to shield MTBE producers, and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle determined to punish them. Mr. Daschle ran campaign commercials touting the energy bill's ethanol subsidies this summer, and many Republicans had hoped that those subsidies would push Mr. Daschle (and other Midwestern senators) to allow a provision opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to energy exploration. Unfortunately, the Senate still seems a few votes shy of the filibuster-proof majority needed, and even an ANWR-less bill is still substantially better than no bill at all. The same could be said for several other provisions, which while desirable, are not worth sacrificing the bill for. After all, the bill contains many needed measures, ranging from improvements to the electricity grid to renewal of the Price-Anderson Act, which limits nuclear reactor plant liability. It has been over a decade since a comprehensive energy bill passed Congress, and almost two and one half years since the president's energy policy group made its recommendations. Subsequently, the nation has experienced natural gas shortages, gasoline price spikes and electricity blackouts — proof of the need for such legislation. Notwithstanding the fractious debate and the subsidies for special interests they have tried to secure, it is now time for lawmakers to put the nation's interest first — to push aside remaining disagreements and pass the comprehensive energy legislation.

To: calgal who wrote (5559)	10/17/2003 1:55:16 AM
From: calgal	Respond to of 10965

Weapons vexations By Austin Bay "The Gathering Storm": Winston Churchill's title for the first volume of his magnificent World War II history. The book chronicles the West's sorry path through the 1930s, the decade where — despite the League of Nations — Imperial Japan raped China and Benito Mussolini's Italian Fascists savaged Ethiopia. Adolf Hitler's rise and the democracies' spinelessness compelled Churchill to give the volume this theme: "How the English-speaking peoples through their unwisdom, carelessness and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm." Politically correct profs will no doubt drub Winnie for emphasizing English speakers, but that fool's slam is a weak critique indeed. Early on, Churchill had the big "intelligence" picture and the dire consequences of Western weakness chillingly correct. President George W. Bush's September 2002 U.N. speech echoed Churchill when Mr. Bush called Saddam Hussein a "grave and gathering danger" — a threat over time. Mr. Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech extended the point: "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option." David Kay's Iraq Survey Group's interim report found no unconventional weapons, though it exposed chemical and biological programs and attempts to acquire long-range missiles. U.N. Resolution 687 required Saddam to ditch programs as well as stockpiles. Mr. Kay showed he didn't. Why? Saddam never lost the will to kill en masse. That's beyond dispute. Saddam killed Iraqis and Iranians with gas. His Kuwait invasion kicked off a 12-year war with America. When Saddam thought he had the drop, no one was safe. If the Saddam War were the only long war vexing America, enforced sanctions might have kept him caged. The corrupted U.N. Oil for Food program, however, gave him a sanctions-defying lifeline as a second conflict accelerated, al Qaeda's war on America. September 11, 2001, proved "cult of martyrdom" terrorists in 767s are ballistic missiles, a form of long-range strike. Add gas or nukes, and millions die. The Pentagon believed Iraq could use chemicals against allied troops. Iraq had stored chemical munitions in conventional ammo dumps. Cautious analysts concluded U.S. troops might face battlefield gas. Mr. Kay's survey indicates intel got that wrong. From a private first class' viewpoint, that's a good thing to get wrong. Intel is never perfect and rarely certain. Those who argue it should precede action are exemplars of Churchill's "unwisdom." Pathetic Neville Chamberlain waited for absolute proof of Hitler's perfidy. He got it — Nazi Blitzkrieg. Smart enemies hide "proof," so intel analysts probe "indications" and make educated assessments. Analyses are bound to conflict. That doesn't make the mistaken analysis a lie. Mr. Kay's report supports former U.N. Iraq inspector Rolf Ekeus' March 2000 assessment of Saddam's stockpile in Arms Control Today: "In my view, there are no large quantities of [chem and bio] weapons. ... Iraq has been aiming to keep the capability to start up production immediately." He said Iraq saw the weapons "as tactical [battlefield] assets." In 2000, however, Ekeus hadn't seen September 11. "Tactical" nerve weapons in terrorist hands are strategic weapons for gassing Manhattan — and a practiced killer like Saddam certainly understood that. The Bush administration had to end the Saddam War in order to defeat al Qaeda at its root — the Middle East's sick autocracies. The administration articulated this strategic rationale prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, though not often enough. However, to dismiss the tyrant's long-term intent to acquire weapons of mass destruction as no cause for toppling him is malignant "unwisdom." September 11 necessarily reshaped all intelligence assessment, first with the freight of fear but ultimately with the weight of responsibility. After September 11, Washington would have been unforgivably irresponsible to bet a million lives on a mass murderer's "good faith." Churchill's history mentions German schemes to evade Treaty of Versailles sanctions. "Illegal" soldiers trained in secret programs to slip army manpower caps. The West caved on Versailles, and these troops quickly expanded the Wehrmacht. When Hitler struck Poland, the "hidden men" were the core of his war machine. Austin Bay is a nationally syndicated columnist.