Week of February 1, 2003
Summit at the White House - President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony
Blair warn that their patience with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the weapons
inspections process in running out and urge the United Nations to act quickly.
The Bush administration proposes
increasing the tax breaks on savings by
crating three tax-protected accounts that
will replace mainstays such as IRA’s and
401K’s.
Just 16 minutes from touchdown - The
space shuttle Columbia disintegrates in
a roar and flashes of light over East
Texas, killing all seven of its astronauts
and scattering chunks of metal and
machinery across two states. NASA
says they do not yet know what
destroyed the craft.
Later, NASA suspects insulating tiles on
Columbia’s left wing.
A somber President Bush tells the nation: "This day has brought terrible news
and great sadness to our country... The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors."
Despite the major setback, the President reassured Americans that the space
program would continue: "The cause in which they died will continue... Our
journey into space will go on."
North Korea - Deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage promises for the first
time that the Bush administration would hold direct talks with the regime in
Pyongyang.
Secretary of State Colin Powell charges that Saddam Hussein has devised
elaborate schemes to conceal weapons of mass destruction and warns that the
time for international action to disarm Iraq is drawing closer.
Saying Saddam Hussein “will be stopped,” President Bush challenges the United
Nations to quickly pass a touch second resolution ensuring Iraq’s disarmament
by force if necessary.
