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Saddam's Pharmacists

By Julia Turner
Updated Friday, July 11, 2003, at 12:06 PM ET
New Republic

New Republic, July 21
Iraqi scientists—one described as having "the polite, self-effacing manner of a small-town pharmacist"—say Saddam's WMD programs were dismantled by the mid-'90s; he was just too proud to admit it. (He may have hoped they'd still be a deterrent.) The CIA dismisses these reports as suspiciously uniform; others believe them. The scientists say Saddam was stockpiling parts and hoping to relaunch his programs once U.N. inspections subsided. … Jeffrey Rosen thinks the Supreme Court's sodomy decision showed "unnecessary breadth"—in ruling that states can't outlaw acts the majority considers immoral, the Supremes struck a blow against all morals legislation. But Andrew Sullivan argues that when a majority passes such laws, it essentially judges an entire minority group to be immoral; the court was right to act against such "majority tyranny." … Also, a piece wonders why President Bush never mentions Liberia's ties to al-Qaida.

Economist, July 10
The magazine turns an outsider's eye on America's post-Sept. 11 liberty vs. security showdown. Liberty wins Round 1: The editorial excoriates Bush's plan to try al-Qaida suspects in military commissions. There is a legitimate need to gather intelligence, the editors note, but a better solution would be to amend the existing system for anti-terror cases, rather than set up a whole new one. … Security wins Round 2. A posse of six American intelligence, security, and legal experts—one wonders who did the typing—contributes a brief proposal: The only way to stop terrorist activity is to "penetrate the organizations engaged in it" [italics courtesy of the posse]; and to combat groups in the United States, America needs a better domestic spying mechanism. The FBI should launch a new counterintelligence division with close ties to the CIA.

New York Times Magazine, July 13
African famine is remarkably tenacious—even in countries not ruled by despots or parched by drought. Malawi is one such place, and Barry Bearak's cover story blames the most recent famine primarily on the IMF, the World Bank, and other international donors. Although corrupt politicians likely squandered some stockpiled corn, Bearak trains his eye on donor-mandated fiscal austerity programs that made much-needed fertilizer too expensive for farmers to afford and on donors who withheld aid while investigating the disappearance of grain reserves. … Some Americans laud the mujahideen Khalq—a group of violent Iranian dissidents—for opposing Iran's clerics. Others denounce it a terrorist gang. Elizabeth Rubin visits the group on an Iraqi base and finds "a totalitarian mini-state": Among the co-ed mujahideen fighters, celibacy is required and dissent forbidden, and the group helped Saddam Hussein crush Kurdish and Shiite uprisings. It would be "dangerously myopic," Rubin writes, to cooperate with them.

Atlantic Monthly, July-August 2003
The sinister-looking cover, which counsels "Supremacy by Stealth," suggests that the editorial brain of the Atlantic may have been possessed this summer by Voldemort, or at least the Rand Corp. The magazine outsourced its "State of the World" report to Rand, which listed 10 international security issues—AIDS-ravaged African armies, the consolidation of the American defense industry—that warrant attention. But why not ask several think tanks to draft such lists? Surely comparing the diverse answers would have been more provocative. … Robert D. Kaplan contends that the United States is the only country strong enough to champion "liberal civil society" worldwide. In order to "get our way, and at the same time promote our democratic principles," we'll have to rule the world, but keep it on the down low, lest plucky meddlers like, say, Turkey object. Kaplan, however, never mentions that his plan—executing surreptitious maneuvers without much input from local populations—sounds rather unorthodox, as "democratic principles" go.

Legal Affairs, July-August 2003
If you kill a Sim, have you committed a crime? It depends who's making the laws, and the cover story notes that in a virtual world, it's tough to figure out who has that job. Users themselves might circulate virtual petitions to reform property rights or round up posses to hunt down virtual murderers. But it's software designers who can code crime and punishment in and out of the program. (And they often leave a fair amount of crime in, since users seem to like it that way.) Though designers are dictators, their power is not absolute; in a virtual world, even the lowest of serfs can just opt out.

Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report

Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report, July 14
"Statins are the new aspirin." Newsweek fronts a gauzy health story: Statins, a group of drugs that includes Lipitor, have been wildly successful at lowering cholesterol. Puritan critics argue that the drugs "reinforce bad habits," because patients who take them can reduce cholesterol risk substantially without reforming their diets or exercise routines. Also, statins "show promise against Alzheimer's" and other diseases; they do, but the scientific evaluation of those claims is in preliminary stages.

Peace is the new war. Time rolls out a comparatively hard news cover, offering an update on the struggling reconstruction of Iraq. The piece plays up interviews with Paul Bremer and his staffers; his chief of staff describes the Coalition Provisional Authority's task as "postwar reconstruction before the war is over," emphasizing that it ain't yet. The piece offers a one-stop recap for those who've been skimming newspaper reports on Iraq: Ambushes continue, Iraqis are disgruntled, the lights are out again, Rumsfeld critics think more troops on the ground would facilitate peacekeeping, the troops on the ground contend they aren't trained for peacekeeping. Bremer counsels patience. … Meanwhile, in Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria has a solution: "Internationalize the occupation" by bringing in NATO or U.N. forces. The plan would raise troop levels and deflect Iraqi wrath, but Zakaria thinks the Bush administration is refusing this solution on "ideological" grounds.

Pirates are the new Napster. U.S. News spins the recording industry's new strategy—sue individual digital pirates, rather than the file-sharing services and software companies that have proven elusive legal targets—into a cover story.

Will the independent 9/11 commission do any good? Time presents the commission as hard-charging, noting that it plans to meet with both Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush and ask them "what their administrations knew about the al-Qaida terrorist plots—and what was done to combat them." But U.S. News sees the group as relatively hamstrung; Clinton and Bush are witnesses on the commission's wish list, but they may or may not testify; federal agencies have been lead-footed about forwarding documents; and the Bush administration successfully kept the congressional inquiry from speaking with his National Security Council and may do the same for the independent commission.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker, July 14
Those who tore through Moneyball—Michael Lewis' sadly finite book on the statistics-obsessed baseball geeks who reformed the Oakland A's—should read Ben McGrath's update on the grandfather of baseball geeks, Bill James, and what he's done for the beleaguered Red Sox, who recently hired him to develop a "culture of ideas" to guide the team. Unfortunately, now that the team owns his ideas, we don't get to read so much about them; James reveals that left-handed batters actually do better at Fenway Park, where righties have long been said to excel, but is frustratingly mum on all else. (Read Slate's "Book Club" discussion about Moneyball and a follow-up Q and A with James.) … A profile of Katharine Hepburn argues that the actress "was really playing herself"; just as her headstrong heroines usually relinquished their foot-stomping mettle for domesticity and the arms of a headstronger man, Hepburn put her own career aside for Spencer Tracy, opting instead to shepherd him through bouts of drinking and depression.

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Julia Turner is Slate's deputy editor. You can e-mail her at .
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