1. Needless poverty besieges Caracas in the form of squalid, chaotic, violent shanty towns that are so dangerous the police won‘t go there at weekends.

2. On Veterans‘ Day (November 11), Bush addressed troops at an army base: "It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." He accused "some Democrats and anti–war critics" of lying in stating that "we manipulated the intelligence". Later, Bush spoke before troops at an air force base, where he stated that the Democrats "now rewriting the past" are "sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy". The soldiers "deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them into war continue to stand behind them". Unless "our will is strong", disunity will threaten "victory". While the "ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life" besieges us from without, the most insidious undermining comes from within.