The Walla Walla (Wash.) Union-Bulletin, Nov. 26:

No matter how you look at the news about the budget for veterans’ health care in 2005, you can’t be encouraged about our nation’s commitment to taking care of those who have protected us.

While it is true that the budget calls for a record $30.3 billion, an increase of $1.9 billion from this year, it falls considerably short of the $3.1 billion increase the House Veterans Affairs Committee said in February was needed just to maintain the current level of benefits and services. …

The number of veterans needing health care services is increasing as veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the first Gulf War grow older, and more veterans are being injured daily in Afghanistan and Iraq. …

Congress’ lack of courage to fund veterans’ health care at the necessary levels cannot be allowed to hurt those who have stood in harm’s way for the rest of us.

Keeping the status quo


Clarin, Buenos Aires, Nov. 29:

By choosing Condoleezza Rice to succeed Colin Powell as head of the U.S. State Department, re-elected President George W. Bush clearly signaled that there will not be changes to the foreign policy in place during his first term, particularly since Sept. 11, 2001. …

During Bush’s first term, the war against terrorism and the extensive military occupation in the Persian Gulf revealed the limitations of the international community in managing conflicts and confronting inequality and imbalances in power.

In Bush’s second term, it is to be hoped that the United States helps establish a legal and legitimate system to manage relations between nations and communities beyond the pure use of force. We are passing through a complex era, a period of inequality and threats to security and to peace. It should not be forgotten that this period is not the cause, but the result of not having a more capable and legitimate international system.

New direction for CIA


Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle, Nov. 29:

New Central Intelligence Agency director Porter Goss is doing as he should: He’s shaking to its roots an organization whose prestige has plummeted, whose failures in part opened a path for the Sept. 11 terrorists.

Goss understands, an uncommon thing in Washington’s bureaucratic jungle, that it isn’t enough for a new CIA boss or Cabinet secretary to bring in a new management team and leave the rest of the sea of middle managers alone. That ensures only superficial change. If improvement truly is the goal, then a boss committed to that end should reach into every corner of the enterprise.

Goss’ shakeup has unnerved the entire CIA community. No. 2 man John McLaughlin is out. The agency’s deputy director for operations is stepping down, as is his deputy. Further down the ladder, the heads of the European and Far East divisions reportedly are on the way out.

Goss’ dig-deep methods seem defensible from a management standpoint. But his motives must be similarly sound.

If he’s uprooting the ranks simply to get rid of those deemed insufficiently loyal to President Bush, then he’s toying with the underlying integrity of the agency.

The CIA must be able to make intelligence calls free of any kind of outside influence, including the president’s.

Goss says he’s engineering needed change in an agency whose performance has been substandard. It’s about better intelligence, not loyalty.