Rescuing Bam

All our prayers should be with those whose lives and loved ones were lost in the earthquake tragedy still unfolding in the historic Iranian city of Bam rather than querulously quibbling about Teheran's allegedly chaotic

rescue efforts, or blaming poor building methods and a lack of proper regulation for the scale of the disaster, or speculating whether it presages the end of the reign of the ayatollahs.

President Mohammad Khatami has appealed for assistance, and the world should respond immediately. The priority is search and rescue for those still trapped in the ruins, medical care for the injured, and food and shelter for the survivors. Iran has asked for tents, blankets, field hospitals, medicines, generators and water purification equipment. Malaysians should contribute more than generously to the Iranian Earthquake Fund set up by this newspaper together with Berita Harian and the Malaysian Red Crescent Society.

Countries from Britain to China have sent search and rescue teams and relief supplies. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has said Malaysia would provide immediate financial aid to the victims, and the Malaysian Red Crescent Society and Mercy Malaysia have sent rescue teams and blankets. The United States is preparing to send more than 200 emergency relief workers and more than 68,000 kg of medical supplies to Iran despite their long history of antagonistic relations. It is heartening that at moments of great human need like this, the common bonds of humanity and compassion prevail over the discordant notes of political hostility.

-- New Straits Times, Kuala Lumpur

The thinning of the Army

Over a third of the Army's active-duty combat troops are now in Iraq, and by spring the Pentagon plans to let most of them come home for urgently needed rest. Many will have served longer than a normal overseas tour and under extremely harsh conditions. When the 130,000 Americans rotate out for home leave, nearly the same number will rotate in. At that point, should the country need to send additional fighters anywhere else in the world, it will have dangerously few of them to spare.

This is the clearest warning yet that the Bush administration is pushing America's peacetime armed forces toward their limits. Washington will not be able to sustain the mismatch between unrealistic White House ambitions and finite Pentagon means much longer without long-term damage to our military strength. The only solution is for the Bush administration to return to foreign policy sanity, starting with a more cooperative, less vindictive approach to European allies who could help share America's military burdens.

Long months under constant threat of rocket attacks, roadside ambushes and deadly confrontations with civilians in Iraq have left tens of thousands of American soldiers tired, jumpy and badly in need of a break, one that should last at least several months. Most American strategists fear at least a temporary upsurge in attacks as the troop rotations get under way and maneuvering to produce an interim Iraqi government intensifies.

Well over 100,000 American troops will be needed for many more months, unless the Bush administration starts wooing NATO allies instead of snubbing them. Eventually, the Iraqi recruits now being hurriedly trained may provide some relief. Yet there are doubts about their military competence and political reliability, and fears that if Washington is in too much of a hurry, it will succeed only in recreating Saddam Hussein's old security forces in new American-issued uniforms.

Meanwhile, if a sudden crisis were to erupt in North Korea, Afghanistan or elsewhere, the Pentagon might be hard pressed to respond. For a time, it could make do by sending tired troops back into action, mobilizing reserves and borrowing forces from areas that are quiet but still highly volatile. Such expedients have severe long-term costs. The White House must recognize the damage its unilateralism is inflicting on the Army and change course before the damage becomes harder to undo.

-- The New York Times

Mad cow warnings and opportunity

Until DNA tests are complete, it is impossible to be know whether the United States is correct in claiming its first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy originated in Canada. Naturally, settling that question is important to the Canadian and U.S. beef industries. That aside, this incident holds several warnings for Australia, apart from the obvious export opportunities in Japan, South Korea and other countries which have quickly banned U.S. beef.

The incident is a reminder -- especially important when free trade agreement negotiations with the U.S. are in their final stages -- of the need to maintain strict quarantine rules to ensure that no livestock entering Australia from overseas carries a disease which could threaten the national herd. It reinforces the importance of properly enforced standards governing what farmers give their animals to eat, to eliminate one of the means of transmitting BSE. And it underlines the necessity for clear records by producers, feed suppliers and abattoirs so that any suspicions of a disease can be checked quickly and accurately.

The weaknesses in the U.S. system of record keeping have been painfully exposed in this incident. When the alarm was raised on Dec. 23, officials were saying that records on the diseased animal were terrible and that its place of birth might never be known. Their uncertainty partly explains the Canadian wariness when, on Dec. 27, U.S. officials said a metal ear tag recovered from the infected Holstein cow slaughtered on Dec. 9 indicated it was part of a herd sold in Canada which entered the U.S. through Eastport, Idaho, in August 2001 before being transported to Mabton, Washington state, two month later.

Regardless of whether it can prove its first BSE case is of Canadian origin, the U.S. is now in some difficulty regarding its bans imposed after Canada's first -- and so far only -- case of BSE came to light in May. U.S. officials began to relax those bans in August. They were about to relax them further when their BSE case was discovered. The U.S. dilemma now is acute. American beef producers will not want the bans on Canada eased -- with good reason if Canada is the source of their mad cow problem. If the U.S. tighten the screws on Canada, however, it can hardly complain if other countries, including its biggest export markets, are slow to relax their bans on U.S. beef.

-- The Sydney Morning Herald