From the Providence Journal:
People shouldn't overplay severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The disease has killed a few dozen people so far, but it has been nothing like the lethal spread of various influenzas and other pandemics.
People particularly fear the disease because they don't know its cause, though the best guess is a common-cold-like virus, and because there is no special treatment for it. But then, the source and treatment of many such ailments remains unknown. They move worldwide all the time.
Then there is an understandable anxiety about bio-terrorism. There are people, such as Saddam Hussein, who would be more than willing to use such weapons. He doesn't seem linked to SARS - but authorities will be looking for patterns that might suggest efforts to spread this or any other disease.
From the Folha De Sao Paulo, Brazil:
The widespread idea that a war to get rid of Saddam Hussein would be easy and quick may have helped the propaganda objectives of the Pentagon, at least at the beginning, but it has backfired. Expectations of a brief war run so high that every day of delay now sounds like a defeat. Even U.S. soldiers seem victims of that propaganda, for many expected a heroes' welcome and have been rather disappointed to find that Iraqis, including Saddam Hussein's enemies, consider them invaders. The reason behind this mistaken expectation might have been caused by intelligence agents...