Darfur is huge, grievous example of global inertia
DALLASMORNINGNEWS

Much of the world knows Darfur is a genocide in the making. Look no further than the Save Darfur Coalition's Web site (SaveDarfur.org), and you'll see what we mean.

More than 170 faith-based, advocacy and humanitarian organizations are ramped up to do all they can.

A Global Day for Darfur, which included a massive rally in New York's Central Park in mid-September, drew tens of thousands in a worldwide call to end the violence.

Evangelicals, including many here in North Texas, have had Darfur in their humanitarian aid strategies long before many governments started paying attention.

These churches along with numerous Muslim and Jewish organizations continue to lobby the Bush administration to do even more to help.

Tragically, while aid and awareness barely stanches the tide of suffering, the world isn't getting any closer to a core solution. Instead, the ongoing clash between government troops, runaway militias and political rebels should remind us all that Darfur is the most grievous example of global inertia since Rwanda.

More than 400,000 have died, and more than 2 million civilian refugees huddle in camps in Sudan and neighboring Chad. And there's not even safety there, especially in the face of government aerial bombardment, genocidal militias and the lack of food and water.

What makes a mockery of international denouncements of the conflict is the lack of political will and leadership to take the next steps: deploying the 23,000-soldier peacekeeping force that the U.N. Security Council has mandated for Darfur, curtailing the brutal militias and pressuring Sudan's government to reach a political accord with the rebels.

To his credit, President Bush recently exerted more pressure by signing a measure to freeze the foreign financial assets of the country, blocking the travel rights of high-ranking officials and dispatching a special envoy for Sudan.

But many nations are reluctant to send troops.

The delays have left the 7,000-solider African Union monitoring force in Darfur badly overmatched. The world must substantially beef up that force which has signaled it could leave in December or fulfill the commitment to provide peacekeepers.

Without an accord or a robust military force in place, the genocide will surely worsen. It's easy to wonder what any one of us can do to find the political answer. But for starters, let us as individuals and governments not look the other way.

Strayhorn to be commended for dissection of CHIP

A week before Halloween, appropriately, Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn released a damning dissection of the billion-dollar reorganization of state public assistance program eligibility and enrollment.

The lurid details of fiscal waste, bureaucratic incompetence and denial of health care protections for vulnerable children make for some very scary reading.

In handing a contract worth $899 million to Bermuda-based Accenture, a spin-off of disgraced Arthur Anderson, Texas Health and Human Services commissioners were more concerned about ensuring profits for the company than about enrolling qualified Texans in the Children's Health Insurance Program and other forms of public assistance.

Strayhorn, compiled her report in response to a request by three state lawmakers to research the Integrated Eligibility and Enrollment contract awarded to Accenture.

According to the comptroller, the project is now $100 million over budget and behind schedule while CHIP rolls have dropped by 27,567 and Medicaid by nearly 60,000 children since Accenture began operations.

"My conclusion is that this project has failed the state and the citizens it was designed to serve," Strayhorn wrote in a cover letter to the legislators.

She's calling for cancellation of the contract and the creation of a task force to oversee the transition from Accenture while stopping the hemorrhaging of tax dollars.

The report focuses on the 6,000-plus page contract between Accenture and the state, describing it as vague, misdirected and loaded with "perverse incentives" that actually reward the company for stringing out applications for eligibility. "Essentiality, the contract does not provide Accenture with incentives to provide services efficiently, but rather to process as many transactions as possible," the report states. "Furthermore, since Accenture is compensated separately for receiving mail, but not for phone calls, it is in the company's best interests to limit or minimize phone calls and increase the use of mailed