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12/31/2003: "What we learned in 2003…"

In preparation for welcoming in the New Year, it’s always good to take a look back at what we have accomplished in the last 365 days and plan ahead for the next 366 (yes, 2004 is a leap year.) From my point of view, 2003 was a pretty good year.

At the end of 2002, we were in the process of building up forces in the Gulf for an impending battle to topple the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. At the end of 2003, Saddam Hussein is in custody, his brutal, male offspring are dead, and 25 million Iraqis are learning the meaning of freedom. Another mission accomplished.

In 2003, we found out who our true allies are and just how ineffective the United Nations has become. We found out that containment doesn’t work. The Food for Oil program was a miserable failure and should have been named the Food for Weapons program as evidenced by the unbelievable amount of weapon caches that are found daily in Iraq. Containment of North Korea’s nuclear program proved to be another joke. And for the trifecta, Libya, who has been under sanctions for years, voluntarily comes out of the closet with an admission of their weapons of mass destruction program and announces their desire to end that program.

2003 proved the economic recovery was solid as the year ends with the Dow over 10,000, NASDAQ over 2000, unemployment figures returned to 1990’s levels, productivity records being set, continued low interest rates, and no inflation to impede it. For the third time in the last 50 years, tax cuts are proven to stimulate the economy.

2003 brought about four high-terror alerts (if we make it through tonight) without an attack on our soil. We have no way of knowing how many attempts have been thwarted but I think it is safe to say that we have made it more difficult for them to pull it off. I think most of us understand that it isn’t a question of whether there will be another attack; it’s a question of when.

What will 2004 bring us? No clue but my road map will be to stay the course we are on because the successes outweigh the failures and that makes for a pretty good year.

Happy New Year!