www.tuscaloosanews.com By FABIOLA SANCHEZ Associated Press Writer February 26, 2003

A Venezuelan national guard soldier stands in front of the damaged Colombian Consulate Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2003, after an early morning explosion in Caracas, Venezuela. Two powerful explosions damaged the Spanish Embassy and the Colombian Consulate minutes apart in the Venezuelan capital early Tuesday, injuring four people and raising tensions in a city still recovering from an anti-government strike.(AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Venezuela tightened security at embassies Wednesday after two bombs ravaged Colombian and Spanish diplomatic missions, injuring four people and generating fears that the nation's political crisis was entering a more violent phase. The United States, Colombia and other nations demanded a swift investigation into Tuesday's bombings, which came 15 minutes apart at the Spanish embassy and Colombian consulate. Venezuela suggested the bombings were meant to destabilize the government of President Hugo Chavez, who on Sunday criticized Spain and Colombia for allegedly interfering in Venezuelan affairs. "There are elements thinking of taking the route of terrorism" to oust Chavez, said Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel. Chavez had just weathered a two-month strike seeking his ouster and has vowed that strike leaders, including prominent business and labor chiefs, will be prosecuted. Colombia and Spain expressed concern over the arrest of Carlos Fernandez, head of Venezuela's largest business chamber. Rangel announced the creation of an anti-terrorism task force and played down the importance of pamphlets left at the bombing sites swearing allegiance to Chavez and his so-called "Bolivarian revolution." The attackers, Rangel said, merely neglected "to leave Chavez's photo" to implicate the president. Rangel expressed Venezuela's solidarity with both Colombia and Spain. Interior Minister Lucas Rincon said C-4 plastic explosive may have been used in the pre-dawn blasts, which also damaged stores and apartment buildings. Spanish Ambassador Manuel Viturro de la Torre refused to speculate on a motive for the attacks. Colombia used the incident to request Venezuela's cooperation in its decades-old war against leftist Colombian rebels, whom Bogota said often seek haven in next-door Venezuela. On Sunday, Chavez criticized several nations for their concerns about Fernandez's arrest. He also singled out Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, who has spent three months trying to mediate a solution to Venezuela's conflict. Gaviria was returning to Caracas to resume those talks Wednesday. In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker condemned the bombings, saying they underscored the need for all sides to honor a Feb. 18 nonviolence pledge, refrain from "confrontational rhetoric" and create a truth commission to investigate violent incidents. "We note that those bombs follow some sharp verbal attacks by President Chavez on the international community, as well as individual Venezuelans and institutions," Reeker said. The Atlanta-based Carter Center, co-sponsor of the peace talks, urged all sides - including Venezuela's opposition news media - to abandon hate-filled rhetoric that has stoked tension this South American nation. "We call on the leadership of the country to hear the demand of the Venezuelan people for reconciliation and an end to violence in their country," the center said in a statement. Former President Jimmy Carter has supported Gaviria's efforts to broker an electoral solution. Chavez, elected to a six-year term in 2000, accuses Venezuela's traditional elite of seeking his ouster and foiling his efforts to distribute Venezuela's oil riches to the poor. His opposition accuses the former army paratrooper of imposing an authoritarian regime and ruining the economy. Fernandez, the business leader, faces rebellion and other charges for leading the 63-day general strike against Chavez. Police are searching for strike co-leader and labor boss Carlos Ortega. The strike, which ended Feb. 4, hobbled the world's fifth-largest petroleum exporting industry and robbed the feeble economy of billions of dollars.

www.thehill.com JOSH MARSHALL

What profiteth a man if he gain regime change in Iraq and lose the whole world order in the process?

Back in 1999 and 2000, one of then-candidate George W. Bush’s chief campaign trail applause lines was his pledge to “strengthen our alliances.” He said they’d fallen into disrepair under the Clinton administration. Yet today — aside from a few autocracies in Central Asia — it’s difficult to find any countries in the world with which our alliances are stronger than they were two years ago.

Europe and the Middle East are getting the most attention today. And we’ll get to them in a moment. But look at the rest of the world.

In East Asia, our historic alliance with South Korea is in shambles. Partly because of the administration’s bellicose and shambling policy toward North Korea, the South Koreans recently elected the first president in their history to openly question the alliance. Incoming President Roh Moo-hyun is trying, as he must, to calm the waters with the United States. But behind him is a Korean electorate that remains embittered at Bush administration policy and increasingly alienated from the United States itself. Not all South Koreans feel this way, of course. But it’s a bad sign that America’s supporters there are concentrated among the old.

Nothing so worrisome has occurred in our relations with Japan. But there, too, frustration with our brusque mismanagement of the Korean situation has led them to question and buck the U.S. line as never before.

Or take Latin America.

Improved political and economic ties with Latin America were supposed to be a centerpiece of the new administration’s foreign policy. Remember that? The idea was to embed improved relations in expanded free-trade agreements that would eventually encompass most or all of both continents.

The events of Sept. 11 were bound to pull a lot of attention away from these goals. And the struggling world economy has put a drag on support for free trade. But it’s astonishing to see just how badly things have gone. The prospects for hemispheric free trade have been pushed back years, if not decades.

The United States stood by while the Argentine economy swirled down the drain. The crisis in Venezuela remains a bizarre running wound complicating our dealings in the Middle East by wreaking havoc on global oil markets. And Brazil has just elected an America-bashing president who now publicly presses his country’s need to acquire nuclear weapons. Even the president’s much-ballyhooed relationship with Mexican President Vicente Fox has withered under the weight of our policies abroad and perceived inattention to relations with Mexico.

Knee-jerk left-wingers claim that the opposition of the world means that we’re in the wrong. Meanwhile, whiny right-wingers see only our allies’ perfidy, betrayal and opportunism. But both camps’ sides miss the point.

Diplomacy is above all about pragmatism, a task of managing our relations with sometimes querulous and petty foreign leaders who always have their own domestic and foreign political ambitions.

Are the French preening and self-aggrandizing? Yes, far too often. But this is one of those things we pay presidents to handle, not complain about.

Our current predicament is the product of the administration’s dogged pursuit — often strong-arming and brusque — of what it perceives to be America’s interests. But managing the world requires hard choices. And burning through goodwill and trashing old relationships for insignificant or ephemeral gains has its consequences, as we’re now beginning to see.

Was dealing with Saddam important enough to rile our Arab allies? Probably so. But then we might have smoothed our path considerably by taking a different approach to the Middle East peace process. Leaning hard on NATO might have been similarly unavoidable. But then we might have helped ourselves by not spurning more NATO involvement in the war on terrorism or taking such an intransigent stance on issues like global warming and other international agreements.

This isn’t about right or wrong, just foresight and setting priorities. As most of us eventually learn from our personal and professional lives, success almost always requires the willingness to anger some folks. But angering everyone at the same time almost never makes sense since it leaves you isolated and friendless when you need to call on others for help.

Awash in a sea of so much bad blood, the administration has now taken to treating alliances like it does fiscal discipline – making a virtue of necessity by pooh-poohing the importance of something it’s already squandered away. Like the budgetary red ink they’re churning out at the White House today, this will be a mess left to others to clean up.

Josh Marshall is editor of talkingpointsmemo.com. His column appears in The Hill each Wednesday.

www.tcpalm.com By David Royse The Associated Press February 26, 2003

A colder than usual winter was also why gasoline prices have risen, Attorney General Charlie Crist was told.

TALLAHASSEE — The threat of war with Iraq, a two-month strike in Venezuela and a cold winter are driving up world gas prices up, representatives of the nation's largest oil companies told Attorney General Charlie Crist on Tuesday.

Crist questioned officials from six companies, asking for an explanation of how pricing works in the petroleum industry as part of a general, but so far informal, inquiry into why gas prices in Florida have risen to their highest February level ever.

Crist said his office has gotten 176 complaints from Florida residents in the past week about the rising cost of gas at the pumps.

"We felt an obligation to try to find out why that was happening," said Crist after finishing meetings with officials from ExxonMobil, BP, ConocoPhillips, Amerada Hess, Marathon Ashland Petroleum, and Chevron Texaco Corp.

He said the oil companies cited international pressures on the price of crude oil that are beyond their control.

None of the oil company officials would comment for the public before the meetings, and left without talking to reporters. Nor would any of the companies involved in the talks say earlier in the week what they would say in the meetings, citing the proprietary nature of their pricing.

Crist said he wasn't suggesting government interfere with the setting of prices on the gasoline market, and only wanted to know whether there were any violations of antitrust laws.

"We understand that business wants to make profit, we don't have any problem with that," he said. "But we want it to be reasonable."

Crist said he still has questions about whether oil companies are manipulating the supply coming to market, "holding back" oil from the market, he termed it.

"We're not making any allegations today, I want to be clear on that," Crist said. "We're just asking questions."

Crist also was on a conference call Tuesday with 10 other attorneys general from around the country and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Timothy Muris, discussing the rising cost of gasoline.

Crist has asked the FTC to look into whether Florida gas stations are artificially increasing prices to take advantage of possible war with Iraq.

According to the American Automobile Association, Florida's average cost per gallon for regular gasoline on Monday was $1.69, up 19 cents from a month earlier and 56 cents higher than the same time last year.

www.voanews.com Phil Gunson Caracas 26 Feb 2003, 05:54 UTC

Venezuelan authorities are searching for those responsible for two bomb attacks that took place early Tuesday against the Spanish embassy and the Colombian consulate in Caracas. The blasts followed a verbal attack on both foreign governments by President Hugo Chavez.

In the course of his weekly TV and radio show, Hello, Mr. President, Hugo Chavez last Sunday launched a bitter attack on foreign leaders who had expressed concern over the jailing of an opposition figure. The United States, Spain, Colombia and the Organization of American States, in the person of secretary-general Cesar Gaviria, were all subjected to a tongue lashing by the president. Mr. Chavez said they should mind their own business and stop interfering in Venezuela's sovereign affairs.

Just 36 hours later, someone set off two large bombs apparently using plastic explosive detonated by remote control - outside buildings belonging to two of the countries concerned, Spain and Colombia. The interior of the Colombian consulate was 80 percent destroyed, while the building housing the Spanish technical cooperation mission suffered severe damage to its gate and exterior wall. In both cases several nearby buildings lost all their windows, and four people were slightly hurt.

Had the explosions taken place during daylight, the death toll would have been heavy. This is the first time that such attacks have taken place in Venezuela, although grenades have been thrown at diplomatic missions in the recent past.

A member of the bomb squad looks at the area where a bomb exploded in Caracas, VenezuelaFound at the scene Tuesday were flyers critical of alleged foreign intervention, signed by two radical groups which support the Chavez government. But there is considerable doubt that they were in fact responsible.

The interior minister, General Lucas Rincon, denied that the president's verbal condemnation had triggered the attacks. Vice president Jose Vicente Rangel criticized some opposition figures for immediately blaming the government. Some supporters of the Chavez regime said the opposition had more to gain, since it wanted to oblige foreign countries to take a more active role.

Whoever was in fact responsible, few believe they will be caught. So far not a single case of political violence has been resolved since the Venezuelan crisis began about 18 months ago, and the fear is that the escalation will continue. Although government and opposition signed a non-violence pact a week ago, the situation has worsened since then, and some in the opposition are even talking of withdrawing their signatures from the agreement.

washingtontimes.com      From combined dispatches      Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham yesterday said the Bush administration was ready to act quickly to release emergency oil reserves if necessary to offset any disruption to Middle East supplies in the event of war with Iraq.      "We will and can act quickly to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to fortify efforts by producers to offset any severe disruption if it is needed," Mr. Abraham told lawmakers at an Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing.      Crude-oil prices have in recent weeks risen to two-year highs on fears that a war in Iraq, the world's eighth-largest oil exporter, could slow supplies from the Middle East, which pumps a third of the world's oil.      The United States has said it will disarm Iraq by force if necessary, despite widespread international opposition to war and concern that rising energy costs could smother a weak world economy.      The U.S. emergency oil stockpile was created in 1975 and currently has about 600 million barrels of crude oil stored in deep underground salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana.      It can be drawn at a rate of 4.3 million barrels a day for 90 days, before the rate drops as storage caverns are emptied. The government sold 17 million barrels of oil from the reserve in January 1991 at the start of the U.S. offensive in the Gulf war.      The 1991 release helped pull oil prices down to near $20 a barrel, but analysts warn that oil inventories are so low that prices would not fall as far this time in the event of a release.      U.S. crude-oil stocks have fallen to their lowest level since 1975 as a decline in imports from strike-bound Venezuela has drained supplies while sustained cold weather has stoked demand.      Heating oil and natural-gas prices have recently hit all-time highs, and analysts are warning of big jumps in gasoline prices as summer vacation driving demand heats up.      New York oil prices fell after Mr. Abraham's comments, but soon recovered to close at $36.06 a barrel.      "People are being pinched like never before by soaring gasoline and other energy prices," Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, told Mr. Abraham, adding that consumers "are getting hosed because they're not getting any protection."      Mr. Abraham said that any decision on releasing oil reserves would be made in consultation with fellow members of the International Energy Agency, adviser on energy for 26 industrialized countries.      But he added that the government oil stocks were established "to provide energy security ... ."       "We do not believe it should be used to address price fluctuations," he said.      The head of the IEA said earlier yesterday that strategic reserves in major oil-consuming nations will only be used should producers fail to make up any supply shortfall.      "I believe the producers should act first. Reliance on strategic reserves should be a last resort," said Claude Mandil, executive director of the Paris-based IEA.      Producers in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries oil cartel have told the IEA they have enough spare capacity to meet any stoppage of Iraqi exports if there is a war.      Iraq oil exports remained steady at 1.7 million barrels per day in the week ended Feb. 21, U.N. officials said.      The IEA's Mr. Mandil said its members will expect a commitment from OPEC to cover any shortage very quickly, but could wait for weeks for firm evidence of the extra output.      Members of the IEA, formed after the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s to protect consumer nations' interests, include the United States, Germany and Japan. The IEA holds four billion barrels of reserves, equivalent to about 115 days of net imports.