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Cato Daily Dispatch for September 25, 2003

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CIA Report to Say No WMDs Found in Iraq Yet
D.C. Mayor May Propose Takeover of Public Schools
Gap between Rich and Poor Widens

CIA Report to Say No WMDs Found in Iraq Yet

"An interim report by the CIA's chief weapons hunter in Iraq will not make any claim of finding weapons of mass destruction, say officials at the intelligence agency," The Associated Press reports.

"The officials declined to specify what findings David Kay might include in his upcoming report but said Wednesday it is not expected to reach any conclusions about Iraq's alleged weapons program."

In "The Case of the Missing WMDs," Senior Editor Gene Healy writes: "The focus on missing weapons threatens to obscure the larger point: that with or without chemical and biological weapons, Iraq was never a national security threat to the United States.

"The proposition that Saddam Hussein was willing to hand over WMD to terrorists appears to have been based on sheer speculation, and implausible speculation at that. Despite over 20 years of supporting terror against Israel, Hussein never turned over chemical or biological weapons to Palestinian terror groups, reasoning, correctly, that such action would provoke massive retaliation. Still less was he likely to hand over such weapons to Al Qaeda, a group that has long opposed his 'socialist infidel' rule and could not trust to keep the deal secret."

D.C. Mayor May Propose Takeover of Public Schools

"Mayor Anthony A. Williams said he is preparing a proposal to strip the Board of Education of most of its power and take direct control of the chronically troubled D.C. public schools after years of scant progress," The Washington Post reports.

"The move follows months of lobbying by Williams for a private-school voucher program that has energized the national debate on the issue while also prompting Williams to make scathing remarks about the city's 67,000-student public system. This week he repeatedly likened the system to a natural disaster such as Hurricane Isabel."

The Cato Institute's Casey Lartigue has written extensively on the need for education alternatives in Washington, D.C. In "The Need for Educational Freedom in the Nation's Capital," Lartigue writes that "despite having per-pupil spending that ranks among the highest in the nation-$10,550 for 1999-2000-public school students in the District rank near the bottom on standardized tests and in achievement levels. Although spending has almost tripled since the 1980-81 school year and increased 39 percent since Mayor Anthony Williams took office in 1998, the system lacks qualified teachers, safe facilities, and even basic supplies such as pencils and textbooks. The system's leaders demand more money in exchange for more promises of improvement."

Gap between Rich and Poor Widens

The New York Times reports that "the gap between rich and poor more than doubled from 1979 to 2000, an analysis of government data shows.

"The gulf is such that the richest 1 percent of Americans in 2000 had more money to spend after taxes than the bottom 40 percent.

"In 1979, the wealthiest 1 percent had just under half the after-tax income of the poorest 40 percent of Americans, analysis of new data from the Congressional Budget Office shows."

In "Closing the Wealth Gap: Allow Social Security Investment," Michael Tanner, director of Cato's Project on Social Security Choice, writes: "Social Security may provide a barely adequate retirement income, but it generates no wealth. Workers don't own their Social Security funds and have no legal right to the benefits. It is, simply, not wealth in the same way as a 401(k) plan, an IRA, or a bank account. The rich, however, have 401(k) plans at work: They have discretionary income with which to invest. They can accumulate greater wealth. The rich get richer; the poor do not."

Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org