1.   America is adamantly opposed to easing the embargo.

2.   As a result, ending or easing the embargo requires an act of Congress.

3.   Barring fresh provocations by Havana, the administration and Congress should look for further ways to ease the embargo.

4.   Bush has shown no inclination to lift or ease the embargo.

5.   But there has been growing pressure, not only from Russia, to ease the embargoes on Iraq.

6.   By contrast, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved an agricultural financing bill Wednesday that would slightly ease the embargo on Cuba, allowing food and medicine sales.

7.   Congress should approve bills pending in both houses that would ease the embargo on food and medicine sales.

8.   Diplomats think that Hussein may have read too much into the division and gambled that he could get the embargo eased or lifted if he struck now.

9.   Even so, Bush and former President Jimmy Carter, who urged easing the embargo during his recent visit to Cuba, met quietly at the White House.

10.   In the United States, centrist opinion is moving slowly toward easing the embargo.