Cato Daily Dispatch for July 29, 2003
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Saudi Prince to Meet with Bush over September 11 ReportWhite House Wants States to Share Amtrak Bill
Interim Iraqi Council Selects Nine-Person Presidency
Saudi Prince to Meet with Bush over September 11 Report
"Saudi officials, furious over a congressional report issued last week alleging possible links between individuals in the Saudi government and some of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, have requested and been granted a meeting today between Foreign Minister Prince Saud Faisal and President Bush," reports The Washington Post.
"The hastily scheduled White House visit, which will take place shortly after Bush meets with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, demonstrates the level of Saudi anger and the kingdom's clout with the Bush administration. A key issue in the dispute is that 28 pages of the 900-page report, in a section dealing with allegations about Saudi Arabia, were entirely classified--but well-publicized--and some U.S. officials said it appeared the Saudi government was moving toward asking the president to declassify those pages."
In "Terrorist Sponsors: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China," Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato's vice president for defense and foreign policy studies, writes: "The Saudi government has been the principal financial backer of Afghanistan's odious Taliban movement since at least 1996. It has also channeled funds to Hamas and other groups that have committed terrorist acts in Israel and other portions of the Middle East.
"The U.S. government has warned that it will treat regimes that harbor or assist terrorist organizations the same way that it treats the organizations themselves. Yet if Washington is serious about that policy, it ought to regard Saudi Arabia as a prime sponsor of international terrorism. Indeed, that country should have been included for years on the U.S. State Department's annual list of governments guilty of sponsoring terrorism."
The Cato Handbook for Congress devotes a chapter to the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. In the book, Cato Senior Fellow Doug Bandow urges Congress to "forcefully press Riyadh to aid American efforts to investigate terrorist activities and cut off private funding for terrorist groups, even at the cost of today's cozy relationship."
White House Wants States to Share Amtrak Bill
"The Bush administration proposed today to pay for intercity passenger rail service on the same basis that it pays for mass transit, with Washington paying part of the capital cost, but making the states pick up the rest, along with the operating deficits. Under the plan, the states would decide what service would be offered," reports The New York Times.
"Since its creation in 1970 Amtrak has run deficits each year and collected at least $25 billion in federal subsidies, while accounting for only three-tenths of one percent of all trips taken annually by Americans," says Cato Institute Adjunct Scholar Edward Hudgins. "It claims to need $1.8 billion this year to survive. The Bush proposal is a step in the right direction and probably will lead to the closing of some unprofitable long-distance routes. But in the end the plan simply transfers government inefficiencies from the federal to the state level. Ultimately, Amtrak will need to be sold off to the private sector."
In "Help Passenger Rail by Privatizing Amtrak," Hudgins and former Amtrak reform council member Joseph Vranich take a look at the passenger line's finances and call for its privatization, noting that Amtrak's long-distance lines are not sustainable. "The rush to throw money at Amtrak represents government at its worst," they write. "The nation should not stay wedded to the Amtrak paradigm, which has been a colossal failure for 30 years, because terrorists' acts have boosted train travel."
Interim Iraqi Council Selects Nine-Person Presidency
"Iraq's Governing Council, the 25-member body set up by the U.S.-led coalition to run Iraq as an interim administration, elected a nine-member presidency Tuesday," reports USA Today. "The U.S. administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, had said when the council was announced on July 13 that its first order of business would be to elect a president, but members have been unable to agree on a single leader."
In "A Democratic Iraq? Don't Hold Your Breath," Cato Senior Fellow Patrick Basham writes: "The Bush administration's plan for the reconstruction of a post-Saddam Iraq includes the laudable goal of a democratic political system. This new democracy, it is argued, will serve as a model throughout the Islamic world, like the so-called Velvet Revolution that swept across Eastern Europe at the Cold War's end. Unfortunately, the White House will be disappointed with the short-to-medium-term result of its effort to establish a stable democracy in Iraq, or any other nation home to a large Muslim population."
Separately, in "A Democratic Iraq May Not Be Friendly to U.S.," Christopher Preble, Cato Institute director of foreign policy studies, writes: "If a democratic election, reflecting the honest and freely expressed wishes of the Iraqi people, produces a leader deemed insufficiently committed to Washington's goals, the Bush administration will be forced to affirm or reject its alleged attachment to the principle of democracy."
Wyatt Dubois, editor, wdubois@cato.org