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This Was The Week That Was, #48
April 4 - 10
Howard J. Ehrlich

The news was dominated by the 9/11 commission hearings and the testimony of National
Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice. Not since Oliver North has the American public heard such
a performance. The key term was not PDF or PDA and it certainly was not a PSA. The focus
was on a PDB, the “president’s daily briefing” dated August 6, 2001. The hearing and
subsequent response made clear that the Shrub administration knew of suspicious activity by al-
Qaeda operatives who were based in the US prior to September 11.

With an arrest warrant for the Shiite leader, Moqtada Sadr, and the closing of a Shiite
weekly newspaper, the war in Iraq goes on. The US Marines surround the city of Fallujah while
calling for a cease fire.

Annals of corporate crime 1..... Public Citizen has called for an investigation of the
Bechtel Corporation because of its failure to develop water delivery and sewage disposal in Iraq.
Bechtel was awarded a $1.03 billion contract without public review. Cities and villages across
Iraq are still without water systems. (www.citizen.org)


Annals of corporate crime 2..... Six of every 10 US corporations paid no federal taxes for
1996 - 2000, according to the Government Accounting Office. The basic federal corporate tax
rate for these big companies is 35%. (Wall Street Journal)

April 11 was “Tax Freedom Day.” For 2004 this was the day that Americans earned
enough money to pay off their total annual tax bill. People have worked 65 days to pay their
federal taxes and an additional 36 days for their state and local taxes.
(www.timesheraldonline.com)

On the environmental front..... In New York City, the gas and dust released by the
collapse and cleanup of the World Trade Center continue to invade the lungs of thousands of
residents and rescue and recovery workers. As many as half of the workers suffer from upper
respiratory problems and tens of thousands of sites, including schools and offices, have not been
checked for toxins such as mercury, lead, and asbestos. Inside dopesters believe that the White
House ordered the EPA to downplay the environmental damage. (www.truthout.org)

The DOE has refused to release funds to clean up high-level radioactive materials in
tanks (some leaking, some with their contents obscured) at Hanford, Savannah River, West
Valley, NY and Idaho. The Shrub administration wants some of the waste to be reclassified as
“low level” so it could be buried on site. Although the reclassification has been ruled in federal
court as illegal, the Energy Department won’t release the money until the reclassification occurs.
(Associated Press)


Poll Watch..... A Los Angeles Times national survey this week revealed a considerably
positive shift in American attitudes to gays and lesbians. A majority said they believed that the
legal recognition of same sex marriage was inevitable.

The pre-release of an extensive Gallup poll indicated that approximately three-fourths of
Black and Latino adults said race relations had improved in the US. At the same time, 63 per
cent said that “race relations will always be a problem in the US.” While there was majority
approval of affirmative action and a preference for living in a “mixed neighborhood,” 49 per cent
of Blacks said they had experienced some form of discrimination in the past month. (Associated
Press)

No noose is good noose..... Amnesty International investigated the leading users of the
death penalty in 2003. The US along with Vietnam, Iran, and China accounted for 84 per cent of
the known executions in 2003. Six countries suspended the death penalty last year and now only
78 of the 195 countries studied still retain capital punishment. (Reuters)