Deadline Met, Sort Of

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION MET ONE LAST DEADline -- kind of, barely. Officials had said they hoped to at least begin a pullout from Somalia before Bill Clinton's Inauguration. Lo and behold, in the final hours of the Bush presidency about 1,100 Marines were beginning to come home. Besides redeeming Bush's pledge, the move was clearly intended to prod the United Nations to hurry up in creating a regular peacekeeping force to take over from the U.S.-led ad hoc troops. American Marine Colonel Fred Peck, a military spokesman in Mogadishu, hopefully suggested that U.S. troops could begin to pass authority to the...