World of Opinion
On privatization: Privatization of government services is a worthy goal at the federal level as it is at the local and state levels. There are many areas in which private contractors, bidding against one another and against public agencies, can provide quality service efficiently and sometimes even at reduced cost.
But privatization is not superior in every case and should never be pursued just for its own sake.
Last week the Bush administration proposed rules changes that would make it easier for companies to compete with the government for maintenance, construction, secretarial and other types of work. And the administration identified 850,000 jobs – nearly half of federal civilian workers – that could be given to private contractors. …
While the administration’s goal of moving 850,000 jobs to the private sector seems overly ambitious, the federal government should pursue privatization wherever possible, with some conditions.
Those conditions would include keeping benchmarks in place to measure the effectiveness of private contractors, ensuring that public agencies would be able to bid for the work, and ensuring that health coverage and other workers’ benefits and rights are not compromised.
On UN inspections:
Many of us assume President Bush or one of his key associates would play the key role in deciding the outcome of the United Nations’ revived search for weapons laboratories in Iraq. The president most assuredly will decide whether the American military should get involved, but for now he will step back and let a Swedish inspector, Hans Blix, take the lead.
Blix, who was part of the UN team in Iraq for several years after the Persian Gulf War, is the leader of the group that soon will return to the Middle Eastern country. … Blix, who previously ran the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, was a compromise choice to lead the inspections team. Since his appointment … he has built a close relationship with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and made clear that his allegiances are strictly to the Security Council, which oversees his mission.
From the start, the Iraqis will almost certainly test Blix’s, and the UN’s, resolve. For example, will the inspectors have free rein to look anywhere they choose, including Saddam’s palaces?
We shall soon see. It is instructive to remember that, in the seven years that UN inspectors spent in Iraq during the last decade, they uncovered and destroyed plenty of nuclear and chemical weapons programs. It is up to Blix’s team to finish the job.
On the El Al hijack attempt:
In aviation-security circles, Israeli commercial air carrier El Al leads the pack. So much so, in fact, that congressional leaders have used El Al as a model upon which to base new domestic aviation-security regulations.
Why tinker with what works? Over the weekend, for example, an Israeli Arab smuggled a knife on board an El Al flight, and tried to storm the cockpit. He was subdued quickly by El Al security forces, and never had much of a chance – thanks to fortified cockpit doors.
Congress, too, properly has invested millions of dollars since Sept. 11 to beef up the sky marshals program and cockpit doors. But lawmakers went a step further than El Al – deciding to arm pilots with guns, as well. That’s dangerous overkill.
As the El Al incident proved, professional security, along with fortified cockpits, work just fine – without arming pilots. Congress should stick to the El Al playbook.
On port security:
The FBI’s warning on Thursday that al-Qaida terrorists may be planning a “spectacular” attack in the United States to cause massive economic damage and inflict widespread casualties had a significant coincidence. On the same day, Congress passed the Maritime Security Act, which seeks to prevent a shipping catastrophe on the same scale as the airliner hijackings of 9/11.
The vulnerability of America’s 301 ports, through which more than 16 million containers pass every year, has long been apparent. But a planned response to a terrifyingly obvious threat has been long in coming. South Carolina’s Sen. Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, deserves credit for nursing the bill to protect our ports from terrorism through Congress. …
The danger, of course, is very real, and full funding for the measures proposed to make our ports more secure must be provided by the federal government, offset where possible by user fees.
The most urgent need is to provide sufficient funds to allow U.S. Coast Guard personnel and Customs agents to inspect more ships and shipping containers arriving in the country. …
… Common sense dictates that maritime security must be given top priority. Funds must be made available to put a comprehensive security system in place.
The objectives of the bill are good, but it goes only halfway toward achieving them.