Off the Record

Iraq and a Hard Place. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait might not have taken Western observers by surprise had they paid attention to a key participant in meetings in early August between Iraqi and Kuwaiti officials in Jeddah. This was Ali Al-Hassan, a cousin of Saddam Hussein, who is Iraq’s minister of local government. Mr. Al-Hassan was in charge of Iraq’s chemical warfare effort and its savage attacks on the country’s Kurdish minority. His preferred modus operandi in carrying out that task was to give dissident villages three hours’ notice to “mend their ways” and then follow up with outright annihilation. It was not lost on the rulers of Bahrain and Qatar that Hussein chose Mr. Al-Hassan to deliver his messages to them after the Jeddah meeting.

Better Here than in Philadelphia. The editorial-page editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, David Boldt, set off a firestorm when he accused the Catholic Church of being “un-American.” He did soinanop-ed piece defending a cartoon that depicted a menacing bishop telling a tiny Governor James Florio (N. J.), “Thou shalt take our doctrine on abortion and thou shalt shove it down the throats of all thine constituents.” The immediate cause of the assault was the announcement by Bishop James McHugh of nearby Camden, New Jersey, that pro-choice Catholic politicians would no longer receive honors or speak at Church functions. After some public sparring the Inquirer agreed to a high-level pow-wow between Mr. Boldt & Co., Bishop McHugh, and Archbishop Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia. Although Mr. Boldt did not back off (he says the bishops are guilty of “spiritual extortion”), apparently his readers aren’t so sure, judging from the negative mail coming into the Inquirer’s offices. Cato hears Bishop McHugh—who recently received a phone call from an irate Mario Cuomo over the same issue— has been getting a flood of letters from people saying they are delighted to see a U.S. bishop standing tall.

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Iraq and a Hard Place. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait might not have taken Western observers by surprise had they paid attention to a key participant in meetings in early August between Iraqi and Kuwaiti officials in Jeddah. This was Ali Al-Hassan, a cousin of Saddam Hussein, who is Iraq’s minister of local government. Mr. Al-Hassan was in charge of Iraq’s chemical warfare effort and its savage attacks on the country’s Kurdish minority. His preferred modus operandi in carrying out that task was to give dissident villages three hours’ notice to “mend their ways” and then follow up with outright annihilation. It was not lost on the rulers of Bahrain and Qatar that Hussein chose Mr. Al-Hassan to deliver his messages to them after the Jeddah meeting.

Better Here than in Philadelphia. The editorial-page editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, David Boldt, set off a firestorm when he accused the Catholic Church of being “un-American.” He did soinanop-ed piece defending a cartoon that depicted a menacing bishop telling a tiny Governor James Florio (N. J.), “Thou shalt take our doctrine on abortion and thou shalt shove it down the throats of all thine constituents.” The immediate cause of the assault was the announcement by Bishop James McHugh of nearby Camden, New Jersey, that pro-choice Catholic politicians would no longer receive honors or speak at Church functions. After some public sparring the Inquirer agreed to a high-level pow-wow between Mr. Boldt & Co., Bishop McHugh, and Archbishop Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia. Although Mr. Boldt did not back off (he says the bishops are guilty of “spiritual extortion”), apparently his readers aren’t so sure, judging from the negative mail coming into the Inquirer’s offices. Cato hears Bishop McHugh—who recently received a phone call from an irate Mario Cuomo over the same issue— has been getting a flood of letters from people saying they are delighted to see a U.S. bishop standing tall.