This Was the Week That Was: September 30 – October 6 (#23)


The news this week was dominated by the California elections and the sports analysis of Rush
Limbaugh. However grimy these stories were, the problematics of the US in Iraq and the
seemingly never-ending war in the Middle East left us with truly grim tales. The major news
media gave particularly critical attention to the conflicts between the Department of State and the
Department of Defense.

Is there an anthropologist in the house?.....The UN has continued to reject US proposals to assist
in its colonial administration of Iraq. Whatever is happening it is likely that the American
administrators are not entirely aware. Only 17 of the 800 staffers in the Colonial Office of
Administrator Bremer speak Arabic and only one person is an Iraqi specialist.

Other than that, everything is fine.....Newsweek reporters featured a story describing US policy as
based on “wrongheaded assumptions, ideological blunders, weak intelligence, missteps, poor
coordination, and bad luck.” Most of this they attributed to conflict between the State and
Defense departments and the poor coordination by Condoleeza Rice, the National Security
Advisor to the President.

TV News–the more you watch, the less you know.....In a series of 7 polls involving interviews
with over 9,600 people the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of
Maryland, College Park, found that political ignorance dominated the public perception of the war
with Iraq. They found that 60 percent of Americans held at least one important misconception
about the war (for example, the belief that the US has found weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq). Eighty percent of the respondents who said they relied on Fox news for their information,
held at least one significant misperception. (www.pipa.org)

Looking for the mysterious WMD’s has been costing $100 million a month.

Take me to your leader....Although the President’s “job performance” rating has declined to a
relative low, 60 percent told the NY Times/CBS News Poll that they regard Bush as a “strong
leader.” According the Washington Post, the Shrub is certainly a leader in fund-raising. In the
past 6 months he raised $82 million for his reelection campaign. His goal is set at rwo million
dollars.

On the domestic front..... the Census Bureau announced that there were 43.6 million people
without health insurance in 2000. (Census.gov) The government and conservative economists
touted the job increase last month as a sign of a beginning economic recovery. In fact, NPR’s
Marketplace reported that the increase was only one-hird of normal job growth.

On the war front....North Korea issued announcement this week that it had completed its
production of plutonium and now had the capability of assembling nuclear bombs–or may alraed
have done so. (Washington Post) In the Middle East, Israel announced that it planned to build
600 homes in three West Bank settlements. It was generally expected under most agreemnets
that Israel was to have halted all new settlements. (NY Times)

Bumpersticker of the week....Bush/Cheyney ‘04: Four More Wars