And to all of us a good year
What a year this has been!
The global battle against terrorism. A looming war to disarm Iraq. Corporate corruption. A lackluster economy that has lost its vigor. And the stock markets struggling to regain trillions of dollars in lost retirement savings.
It’s almost enough to make an optimist like me feel a tad insecure about the future. But there are a lot of silver linings in many of these dark clouds that should give us reason to hope for better times ahead.
Surely, it is evident that in the war on terrorism, the United States and its allies have kept Al Qaeda on the run. Hardly a month goes by when we do not hear of terrorists being captured in Europe, Asia, the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. The FBI just announced that intelligence agents have foiled hundreds of terrorist plots over the past year.
Behind the scenes, according to intelligence sources, highly secretive CIA and special military operations have eliminated key terrorist thugs and their cohorts abroad, often in close cooperation with our allies.
While the new Department of Homeland Security is getting organized, there can be no doubt that we are safer today than we were before Sept. 11, when we had let down our guard and were wide open to attack. In most areas, we are on a much higher level of alert. Security has been improved dramatically at our airlines, ports and borders.
Of course, much more needs to be done. In an open society like ours, we still remain vulnerable. It’s a battle we have to fight anew each day as we set about the task of building a new generation of technology to thwart future threats.
I still believe that a war with Iraq is probable, but the administration has been saying for some time now that this standoff could end without the United States firing a shot.
While our nation builds its forces in the region and President Bush shows that his resolve is not wavering, there are signs that Saddam Hussein may cave in. Last week, Iraq announced it is “ready to deal” with U.S. demands to open up other suspected sites to CIA agents and to interview its weapons-related scientists without Hussein’s agents being present.
But Hussein isn’t fooling anyone. This is the yo-yo strategy he has used before. Scientists know that their families will be murdered if they reveal any secrets, even if they are interviewed out of the country.
Expect a lot more backing down from Hussein as the day of reckoning draws near. In the end, his own lieutenants may get rid of him to save their hides, or he will flee the country as the U.S. invasion begins and his regime will collapse.
Meantime, here at home, we have scrubbed and disinfected the stain of corporate corruption from our economy. Business executives have been arrested, indicted or have pled guilty. Others are still being investigated. Wall Street brokers and major accounting firms have cleaned up their operations. Tougher rules are in place at the SEC and on Wall Street.
The biggest fish at WorldCom and Enron are still free, but the system has ruthlessly and efficiently punished corporate misdeeds. In some cases the regulatory remedies have been excessive. But investors have returned to the markets and corporate America is healthier now than it was before the scandal broke.
And what about the economy? Economic growth soared in the first quarter, only to fall and then rise and then fall again as the year went on. GDP in the last three months may be little more than 1.5 to 2 percent. Not an encouraging sign.
(Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.)