Following a deadly attack last week, in which three American security guards were killed when a roadside bomb exploded under their car near Gaza, the administration pulled its diplomats out of the occupied territories altogether. Washington is sticking with its Catch-22 policy regarding Arafat: It agrees with Sharon that the Palestinian leader is the main obstacle and refuses to talk to him, but at the same time forbids Israel to expel or kill him. Under these conditions, all Sharon can do is hope for Arafat's demise. Speculations about Arafat's recent illnesses -- a heart attack, stomach infection, liver troubles, gallstones -- were warmly welcomed in Israel's security circles. Israeli intelligence maintains that the Palestinian leader is sicker than his physicians say. American officials doubt it, but who really knows what is happening inside Arafat's bloodstream.

Sharon's government continues to repeat the mantra that when Arafat disappears, his successors will prove more "moderate" and will accept Israel's demands to fight terrorism. So far, however, there are no indications that this analysis is correct. Ahmed Qorei ("Abu Ala"), the interim Palestinian prime minister, has been thwarted by Arafat from even forming a Cabinet, with the sticking point, as always, being control of security. By Nov. 4, Abu Ala must present his permanent Cabinet or resign. Israeli security officials give him zero chance of remaining in office, despite the government's pledge to negotiate with him if he succeeds.

Facing this stalemate, some Likud politicians have started raising alternatives. Sharon's deputy, former Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, suggested a "unilateral move" in which Israel would define its borders and abandon parts of the West Bank. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, Israel's war leader, warned of a diplomatic vacuum. But both, like other politicians, have merely whispered, avoiding serious public debate over their ideas.

Sharon's grip over Israeli politics appears to be unchallenged, despite his failure to bring peace, security or prosperity; his recent decline at the polls; and the ongoing criminal investigation into his campaign finances. Senior Likud members say that he could win approval for a moderate diplomatic initiative, which would include the removal of several isolated settlements. But Sharon is in no rush. He prefers waiting -- while escalating his military response to Palestinian attacks -- to taking any peace initiative. Given America's total support for Sharon, it's hard to see any imperative for policy change in Jerusalem.

According to records made available to The Washington Post and interviews with arms investigators from the United States, Britain and Australia, it did not require a comprehensive survey to find the central assertions of the Bush administration's prewar nuclear case to be insubstantial or untrue. Although Hussein did not relinquish his nuclear ambitions or technical records, investigators said, it is now clear he had no active program to build a weapon, produce its key materials or obtain the technology he needed for either.

Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen by David Kay as special representative of CIA Director George J. Tenet, are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use.

Most notably, investigators have judged the aluminum tubes to be "innocuous," according to Australian Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Meekin, who commands the Joint Captured Enemy Materiel Exploitation Center, the largest of a half-dozen units that report to Kay. That finding is pivotal, because the Bush administration built its case on the proposition that Iraq aimed to use those tubes as centrifuge rotors to enrich uranium for the core of a nuclear warhead.

"I'm mindful of the filter through which some news travels," the president groused a few days ago, "and sometimes you have to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the people."

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Bush does have one thing right: By and large, the news media are functioning as a filtration system in this country. Of course, he wants it to filter out a lot more of the news and views he doesn't like. But Bush would be truly shocked if the nation's mass media acted less like a filtration system and more like a means for widespread democratic communication.

If we were to compile a long list of people with perspectives, opinions, analysis and information routinely excluded by U.S. media filtration, George W. Bush and his buddies certainly wouldn't be on it.

In the United States and around the world, impoverished people who suffer because of the administration's policies are among the real victims of media filtration. But evidently their complaints aren't newsworthy.