- Newsmaker: Gephardt to Step Down as House Minority Leader
Missouri Democratic Congressman Dick Gephardt never became House Speaker. Now, after his party-s poor showing in yesterday-s midterm election, he-s stepping down as House minority leader. Chuck Todd, editor-in-chief for National Journal-s -Hotline,- assesses the reasons for Gephardt-s decision, his possible run for the presidency in 2004, and likely candidates to replace him in his leadership role. - Reporter-s Notebook: Anti-Semitic TV Series to Run during Ramadan in Egypt
An Egyptian TV series airing throughout Ramadan is being compared to a literary fabrication that was used to persecute Jews in Russia and Nazi Germany. Knight without a Horse traces 60 years of Middle East history through the eyes of an Egyptian who fought British occupiers and Jewish Zionists. James Drummond, reporting from Cairo for Britain-s Financial Times, has more on the 41-part series and furor it-s aroused.
Is Oil Driving US Policy on Iraq?
President Bush talks about Iraq-s weapons of mass destruction as justification for war, but skeptics maintain that the long-term objective is US control of Iraqi oil and the second largest oil reserves in the world. Some oil experts contend that it won-t be so easy because instability in the Persian Gulf and rebuilding Iraq would make the cost of an oil war far greater than it-s worth, and because Saddam Hussein just might blow up his own oil fields. We hear more about the motives for war and its possible consequences, and get a former insider-s view of Saddam Hussein himself, from a member of the British Labour Party, economist and national security experts, former Bush White House speech-writer David Frum and a former official from the Iraqi Oil Ministry.