Has there ever been a time when disease claimed so much of the American attention?

Eight years later, American and international attention is once again distracted.

Since then, the conflict has intensified and drawn increased American attention.

But for nearly a decade, settlements have earned little American attention.

Outside experts dismiss this, but the council warlords have used their connections to get American attention.

Yet the focus of American attention had remained on missiles, geopolitical balance, rogue states.

American attention is now focused elsewhere, but the problems that haunted Somalia a decade ago have festered.

The only person who can focus American attention on both is President Clinton.

But the intensifying violence of recent months has drawn most American attention.

Beyond that a host of other challenges, large and small, will vie quickly for American attention.