DATE=8/13/03

TYPE=U-S EDITORIAL DIGEST

NAME=WEDNESDAY'S EDITORIALS

NUMBER=6-13043

BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Assignments

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT-

INTRO: Wednesday's editorial topics resemble Tuesday's as the nation's press cheers the departure of Liberian president Charles Taylor. There is more concern over fighting in Iraq and justification for the war there, as well as new thoughts on domestic security. A nominee for the top environmental post gets attention and the nation mourns a sports hero from the world of ice hockey. Now, here is __________ with a sampling in today's U-S Editorial Digest.

TEXT: On the Texas Gulf Coast, Corpus Christi's Caller Times says the: "Departure of Liberia's warlord was definitely cause for celebration," adding:

VOICE: [Mr.] Taylor, who was not so much a leader as an affliction, not only looted the nation's treasury, stifled economic development and suppressed the most basic human liberties; he also involved himself in ruinous military ventures in neighboring nations…

TEXT: Ohio's Cincinnati Post wants him punished.

VOICE: As an expedient measure, Nigeria is giving [President] Taylor asylum, but if he tries to leave or use his new sanctuary to foment more unrest he should be arrested and tried for the war crimes for which he's already been indicted by an international court.

TEXT: The Washington Post agrees, saying: "Mr. Taylor leaves in his wake a deteriorated nation as well as a West African region ravaged by wars spawned by him and his henchmen in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Burkina Faso.

TEXT: The Boston Globe wants the Bush administration to send in the U-S Marines "on a limited mission" but The Cincinnati Post says restrict their role to logistics only.

On to Iraq, where Ohio's Dayton Daily News is worried about a new source of anti-U-S terrorism.

VOICE: American authorities believe that non-Iraqi Muslim extremists are coming into the country to launch terrorist attacks there. Nobody should be surprised that the ongoing conflict has fostered terrorism.

TEXT: While in Baltimore, The Sun complains that, after all those Bush administration charges about Iraq being in league with terrorists, which were proved false, now non-Iraqi terrorists are arriving on the scene to fight the Americans. So, concludes The Sun:" The United States has created what [Editors: "exactly the situation"] it went to war to prevent."

Charleston's [S-C] Post and courier wants the industrial nations to "promptly transfer billions of dollars in their custody of the Saddam Hussein regime to rebuild the new Iraq.

President Bush's nomination of Utah Governor Michael Leavitt to head of the Environmental Protection Agency is drawing both praise and support from papers.

The Denver Post says it: "enthusiastically seconds [the] nomination [because] the president has picked a son of the West who understands our issues.

However Northern New Jersey's [Bergen County] Record calls him a "Poor choice for the E-P-A because he "wants to shift much of the federal role in environmental regulation to the states [and] is an outspoken opponent of the Endangered Species Act…"

TEXT: As for the latest Palestinian suicide bombing, Indiana's Indianapolis Star says: " The two Palestinian bombers who killed themselves and two Israeli bystanders Tuesday must not be allowed to destroy an already-shaky Middle East peace plan."

Lastly, the nation, and especially ice hockey fans, are mourning the death in a Monday auto accident of Herb Brooks. He was the famed coach of the 1980 U-S Olympic Ice Hockey team that improbably defeated both the all-powerful Soviets and the Finns to win the Gold Medal.

Pennsylvania's Allentown Morning Call suggests: "There aren't many events in sports that rivet [Editors: "dramatically focus"] the entire nation and endure decades later as a vivid image. The U-S Olympic hockey team's defeat of the Soviet Union was one of them."

In New Jersey, The [Bergen County] Record says "the victory - and the way Americans reacted to it - will live forever."

And in his native Minnesota, The Minneapolis Star Tribune says Herb Brooks is "a part of [our] national mythology" and reminds that many call the Olympic victories "the greatest sporting upset of the 20th century."

On those words of praise, we conclude this editorial sampling of Wednesday's U-S press.

NEB/ANG/RH