New York Times
The White House was able to clear enough snow from the driveway to play host to the president of Latvia on Monday, and this weekend President Bush will show Prime Minister José María Aznar of Spain around his Texas ranch. In recent weeks Mr. Bush has also greeted Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and Tony Blair, prime minister of Britain. All this hospitality is an effort to demonstrate that the United States does not stand alone in its determination to force Iraq to disarm, or in its belief that the time is approaching when a war to do so might be justified. The red carpet treatment is fine, but no one should mistake the coalition that Mr. Bush is assembling for the United Nations Security Council.
Let's be realistic about the coercive diplomacy that is presently being applied to Saddam Hussein. As long as France, Russia and China balk at military action and a majority of other Council members hang back, Baghdad will continue to dance around the U.N.'s disarmament orders. The fact that Spain, Italy, Latvia and other nations back Mr. Bush doesn't make the war option any more frightening to Mr. Hussein. No coalition, however willing, can generate the kind of disarmament pressure on Baghdad that would come with the Security Council's explicit blessing of military action. ...
Mr. Bush has repeatedly warned that the Security Council will become irrelevant if it does not come to grips with Iraq. He should not convert that into a self-fulfilling prophecy by turning America's back on the Council. However tempting, the satisfaction of playing host to like-minded friends must not dissuade President Bush from the challenging but necessary effort to obtain further support from the Security Council.
Christian Science Monitor
For those who say corruption is impossible to root out in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, Kenya is an example of the possible.
In the two short months since the election of Mwai Kibaki as Kenya's president, bribery and political favoritism are decidedly out of favor.
The change started at the top. Mr. Kibaki, a political Mr. Clean, immediately began scouring the corruption grime built up over 25 years by his predecessor, Daniel arap Moi.
Kibaki's administration has reclaimed public land given out to ministers in the old regime. His minister of public works is looking into waste and fraud in contracts awarded under the previous government. The new minister of tourism and information actually declined a government broadcasting license issued to his private business because it represented a conflict of interest.
The population won't stand for corruption anymore, either. People are refusing to pay police bribes. Sometimes they even chase down bribe-soliciting officers -- occasionally grabbing the ill-gotten money from their pockets and giving it to passersby.
The lesson here is that a two-pronged approach -- commitment from the top and the bottom -- can indeed prove to be an effective assault on corruption. With no benefactors and no customers, those in the bribery business have no choice but to close up shop.
Boston Globe
One irony in French President Jacques Chirac's tirade Monday against East European countries supporting the US and British position on Iraq is that Chirac indulged in the same arrogance and bullying that Paris inveterately attributes to the US ''hyperpower.'' Indeed, Chirac added an offensive tone that no American head of state could be expected to match, a condescension that only a conservative mandarin of the French governing class might express toward the new democratic countries of Eastern Europe that are eager to join the European Union.
Chirac castigated their governments for acting ''infantile'' and he warned them -- EU candidates Romania and Bulgaria in particular -- that their comportment could be ''dangerous'' to their hopes of gaining membership in the club of capitalist democracies, which he called simply Europe. ...
Reacting to Chirac's threats and insults, the 13 candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe were exemplary in their restraint. ...
Poland's deputy foreign minister said: ''France has a right to its opinion and Poland has the right to decide what is good for it. France should respect that.'' And then, giving Chirac a lesson in what it means to be ''well brought-up,'' the Polish official added: ''I would prefer if he expressed himself more politely.'' ...
It is important for all concerned parties on both sides of the Atlantic to recognize that the quarrel stoked by Chirac is more about Europe and the trans-Atlantic alliance than it is about Saddam Hussein. If President Bush is unsuited to the task, Secretary of State Powell should now come forward to make peace and cultivate unity not only between American and the Franco-German partners, but also between the Old and New Europe. The tyrant Saddam must not be allowed to sow divisions among the democracies.
Chicago Tribune
For the past 29 months, reports of killings in Israel and the occupied territories have become a numbing litany -- three dead over here, seven dead over there -- without any perceptible progress toward a settlement. As of Sunday, the fighting had killed 2,109 Palestinians and 727 Israelis, and inflicted savage economic blows to both groups.
The big election victory last month by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon signaled that Israelis hold little hope for a negotiated end to Palestinian violence. Most of the world is preoccupied now not with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but with a possible war against Iraq.
Yet on Friday, Yasser Arafat announced he will appoint a prime minister to head the Palestinian government. That has been one of the key points in the "road map" toward negotiation pushed by the so-called international Quartet, composed of the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the U.S. Indeed, Israel and the Bush administration refuse to negotiate with Arafat. ...
Arafat announced his decision Sunday standing amid the rubble of his Ramallah headquarters, nearly destroyed by the Israelis. Did Arafat get the symbolism -- that his power is shattered and he should get out of the way? International donors, and the Palestinians themselves, ought to make sure he does. Finally.
Los Angeles Times
The millions of antiwar protesters in Europe last weekend may have given a misleading impression that the Continent is united against any use of force to make Iraq give up its chemical and biological weapons. But even France, the main brakeman on the war train, conceded a split within Western Europe -- and a division between Western Europe and some of the former Soviet-dominated nations.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld needlessly taunted France and Germany last month by calling them members of "old Europe"; for him, countries to the east that support the Bush administration are the "new Europe." But French President Jacques Chirac was equally derisive this week in saying the actions of Eastern European nations that back Washington were "infantile" and "dangerous." Chirac said the pro-American countries -- Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgaria and others that hope to join the European Union -- had "missed a good opportunity to keep quiet." ...
The range of European opinion is evidence that the United States will not lose all of Europe, no matter how the Iraq issue is settled. But a fracturing of Europe must be avoided because its continued assistance is required in fighting terrorism as well as in helping rebuild Iraq after a war.
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Quarantine requirements for pets entering Hawaii appear to be nearing an end. A sensible compromise would limit the quarantine period to no more than five days and eventually allow the administration to eliminate incarceration altogether for animals assured through tests to pose no rabies threat to the islands. The proposal recognizes scientific advances without subjecting Hawaii to risk caused by haste.
The state Department of Agriculture soon will schedule public hearings on a proposed administrative rule reducing the present 30-day quarantine to five days for pets that are vaccinated for rabies four months before their arrival and are embedded with identifying microchips. Pending legislation would do away with the quarantine for pets meeting certain requirements, including the microchip, two rabies shots, vaccinations against other diseases, a valid health certificate and a blood test within the previous year.
A short period of movement toward such quarantine exemptions would be consistent with the transition adopted recently in the United Kingdom, which had a six-month quarantine. The British relaxed the requirement three years ago for pets arriving from Europe and extended that policy in December to vaccinated, blood-tested and microchipped pets arriving from the U.S. and Canada. In announcing the change, officials said pets initially could be held two or three days while their papers were verified. ...
A quarantine facility will be needed even after goals are met, because some pets will continue to arrive without the required vaccinations, health tests and microchips. However, the vast majority of incoming pets will qualify for a brief quarantine or none at all, so the state's quarantine facility and staff should be sharply reduced.
(Compiled by United Press International)
