In their search for hidden Iraqi arms, U.N. inspectors have so far faced little conflict, have found little evidence and have received little outside intelligence to guide them, said one inspector. The teams have discovered two technical matters that could be considered violations of U.N. resolutions but have yet to find a smoking gun, a trace of radiation or a single germ spore.

"If our goal is to catch them with their pants down, we are definitely losing," the inspector said on condition he wouldn't be named. "We haven't found an iota of concealed material yet."

North Korea, one of the world's poorest, most isolated countries, is a difficult place to employ the containment strategy the United States is now pursuing. The world has little left to withdraw or withhold, according to diplomats and specialists. What levers exist largely have been pulled already -- most recently when the Bush administration cut fuel shipments upon learning that North Korea has a program to create enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. "Economically, there really isn't that much else that we can do to pressure North Korea," said Lee Chung Min, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University in Seoul. For the Bush administration, simply intensifying economic and political pressure on the North involves enormous political obstacles. South Korea has embraced engagement and dialogue as the best way to address the reclusive country to its north. It appears committed to that course -- a fact underscored today as South Korea's president, Kim Dae Jung, rejected containment as a failed doctrine.....Ultimately, any effort that does not enjoy China's genuine backing is doomed to fail, experts say. China is not only North Korea's largest external source of food and fuel, but also its largest trading partner and its gateway to the rest of the world.

In their desperation to keep hospitals open, voters here last month did just that, approving new property taxes for the first time in a generation. The county hasn't had a property tax referendum on the ballot since the statewide, landmark anti-tax Proposition 13 in 1978, but this year's passed overwhelmingly, with 73 percent of the vote. ...The measure's success, they add, may tell another important story: that health care is returning to the top of voter concerns. The struggles of Los Angeles County, where more than 2.5 million residents have no medical insurance, are one sign among many across the country of how growing economic hardships in states are creating new crises in health care.

North Korea's startling revival of its nuclear program, coupled with the unrelenting threat of international terrorism, presents compelling reasons for President Bush to step back from his fixation on attacking Iraq and to reassess his administration's priorities. North Korea's reopening of its plutonium reprocessing plant at Yongbyon puts it within six months of being able to produce sufficient weapons-grade material to generate several nuclear bombs. Contrast this with Iraq. Not only is North Korea much further along than Iraq in building nuclear weapons but, by virtue of its longer-range missiles, it has a greater delivery capability. Every option for dealing with this situation including the administration's "structured containment" is fraught with danger and potentially disastrous consequences....
And then there is the war on terrorism. Deadly terrorist attacks continue around the globe, wreaking havoc in far-flung places such as Indonesia, Kenya, Jordan and Yemen, where three American missionaries were killed by a gunman yesterday. Here at home, we remain highly vulnerable to terrorist attacks and woefully unprepared to cope with the consequences. We cannot put this issue on the back burner.

An alarm bell is ringing in California. Will President Bush and the new Republican majority in Congress respond? The alarm is warning of an approaching catastrophe in the health-care system. It's a perfect storm collision of threatening trends.

From one side, the sagging economy and skyrocketing costs of insurance are pressuring more employers to drop health-care coverage for their workers.

From the other side, the cavernous deficits in state budgets are forcing governors and legislators to slash Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor.

As these two trends meet, the result could be a tidal wave in the number of Americans without access to health care. ...

More families without care, longer lines in emergency rooms, more hospitals and public clinics bleeding red ink, more kids sick at school: That's what is looming if Washington continues to close its ears to the health-care alarm ringing now in California -- and soon in state capitals from coast to coast.

Arab leaders looking for a way to avoid a US-Iraq war they fear would ignite their volatile region are considering the possibility of pressing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to step down and go into exile, diplomats say....“There is a strong feeling that the United States is after Saddam and not after weapons of mass destruction and therefore efforts should focus on how to persuade Saddam to leave,” one Arab diplomat said on condition of anonymity....Jordanian analyst Nedal Mansour said Saddam could choose exile over losing everything, if a way is found for him to leave with his family, members of his inner circle and a significant portion of the fortune he has amassed over his decades of dictatorship.

A review of thousands of declassified government documents and interviews with former policymakers shows that U.S. intelligence and logistical support played a crucial role in shoring up Iraqi defenses against the "human wave" attacks by suicidal Iranian troops. The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague....

According to a sworn court affidavit prepared by Teicher in 1995, the United States "actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required." Teicher said in the affidavit that former CIA director William Casey used a Chilean company, Cardoen, to supply Iraq with cluster bombs that could be used to disrupt the Iranian human wave attacks. Teicher refuses to discuss the affidavit.

At the same time the Reagan administration was facilitating the supply of weapons and military components to Baghdad, it was attempting to cut off supplies to Iran under "Operation Staunch." Those efforts were largely successful, despite the glaring anomaly of the 1986 Iran-contra scandal when the White House publicly admitted trading arms for hostages, in violation of the policy that the United States was trying to impose on the rest of the world.

Although U.S. arms manufacturers were not as deeply involved as German or British companies in selling weaponry to Iraq, the Reagan administration effectively turned a blind eye to the export of "dual use" items such as chemical precursors and steel tubes that can have military and civilian applications. According to several former officials, the State and Commerce departments promoted trade in such items as a way to boost U.S. exports and acquire political leverage over Hussein. Read on...

Sources: The Bureau of Justice Statistics' Capital Punishment 1999 bulletin, available on-line here. Information on those states banning the imposition of the death penalty on mentally retarded defendants was taken from the Illinois Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment's April 15, 2002 report, which is available on-line here. The Supreme Court's 1972 decision declaring capital punishment as then applied unconstitutional was Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) and its decision accepting new capital punishment procedures was Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976); these cases are on-line via Findlaw.com.

Death Penalty Information Center: "What we are finding is that the use of the death penalty is becoming more and more concentrated in Texas and a few other states in the South," said Richard Dieter, who heads the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death-penalty group that published the study. "And increasingly, Texas is finding itself standing alone in its increasing application of the death penalty," Dieter said.

There is something eerie, even a little unnerving, about the budget crises that continue to spread, like a contagious, crippling disease, to states and cities across the U.S.... The Washington Post reported last week that some rural school districts in seven states had shifted to a four-day week in an effort to cut costs, and other districts may follow. But Julie Underwood of the National School Boards Association told me on Friday that a shorter week wouldn't do much to ease the enormous funding problems facing the nation's public schools

... California's budget crisis is monumental; a shortfall over the next 18 months of $34.8 billion. As The Times's John Broder wrote, that deficit "is bigger than the annual budgets of every other state except New York." Gov. Gray Davis is already hacking away at services, and big tax hikes are sure to come. If you want a story with legs, this is it. President Bush will have a heck of a time getting the national economy back on track while states from coast to coast are trying to balance their budgets by raising taxes, cutting spending and laying off employees. The National Governors Association, in a report last month, said states are facing "the most dire fiscal situation since World War II." Nearly every state "is in fiscal crisis," the governors said.

An internal White House document outlining President Bush's re-election agenda starts with "War on terrorism (Con't)" and domestic security. ... Mr. Bush has said the fight against terrorism will take years to win. But Democrats said the document bolstered their claim that White House officials had methodically worked to politicize the fight against terrorism....It is the latest sign, critics say, that presidential advisers are seeking political gain from the Sept. 11 attacks.... The document lists 10 issues including health care costs and access, legal reform, faith-based services, education, higher education, Social Security, taxes and immigration.

... The issues championed today by traditional civil rights groups, from affirmative action to ending racial profiling, have become virtually identical to the Democratic Party platform, and many are antithetical to the race-neutral goals of Republicans...."I would argue that unemployment benefits are a form of civil rights," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Democratic delegate who represents the District of Columbia in the House. "Because of the great work of the 1960's, there are only a few clear-cut issues left, like hate crimes and racial profiling. Now we're following the bread-and-butter issues that we share with a broader array of Americans, because issues like health insurance and unemployment affect us so disproportionately."

Across Oregon, schools struggling to save money in this year of budget woes have come up with a response: shorten the academic year. No other states have done that, education watchdog groups said this week. Laws in most states require 180 days of school.But a loophole in Oregon's laws allows its school districts to deviate from the requirements for two school years, and that has led superintendents around the state to consider chopping as many as 15 days from the academic calendar. Other states are cutting teacher pay, increasing class size, not filling vacancies and laying off employees, said Dave Griffith, the director of public affairs for the National Association of State Boards of Education.