As reported in Australia.

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White House declares victory in war against Y2K bug
Source: AP
Published: Saturday February 19, 12:15 PM

WASHINGTON, Feb 18 - The White House declared 'mission accomplished' today in squashing the Y2K computer bug and said it has no regrets about spending billions of dollars to battle a millennium problem that failed to materialise.

Scaling down the Y2K campaign, US President Bill Clinton met with John Koskinen, his senior adviser on the problem, and members of his team for a group photo.

Although the New Year's deadline passed without serious incident, Koskinen's group continues to watch for possible computer trouble.

The United States spent $US100 billion ($A158.81 billion) on preparations to repair programs or chips that had the glitch in which some computers might misread the year '00' as 1900 instead of 2000. The government's share of the fix-up cost was $US8.5 billion ($A13.5 billion).

"We averted what could have been a big problem in many of our economic sectors and government institutions," said presidential spokesman Joe Lockhart. 'And that's in large part because of the leadership of Mr Koskinen both here in the United States and around the world.'

US officials have a stock answer to the question of whether it was really necessary to spend so much.

Repeating a line that Koskinen has used, Lockhart said, "Business in this country doesn't go ahead and spend money on problems that they don't think exist. They addressed this problem. I think we were the leaders in the world on this."

As the most technologically dependent nation on Earth, the United States spent roughly half the world's total repair costs. Some nations spent little or nothing and seemed to get by unscathed.

Most Americans seem to believe the expense was worth it.

A CBS News poll taken in early January found that 98 per cent of those polled experienced no problems from the Y2K bug.

Almost two-thirds thought there were no problems because of the time and energy spent fixing it, but a third said they thought the problem was not serious to begin with.

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Comment:
Phew! I feel so much better now, thank you.

Regards from OZ

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), February 19, 2000

Answers

It must be true if it came from the White House!

(not!)

(Prpare to be sunk by bugs in the near future...)

-- (kb8um8@yahoo.com), February 19, 2000.

"...a group photo." Were they holding swords?

Yep. The world is once again safe for democracy! Sort'a.

Actually, everyone involved, globally, pulled yeoman's duty for a job *almost* well done. I (((shudder))) to think what our world would be like now, if they had NOT been galvenized, but whatever means necessary, into action.

To claim the Y2K bug's have been vanquished is a tad premature... but... it's an election year.

;-D

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), February 19, 2000.

way to go slick willy or is that sick willie? ...i am so relieved that these brave few have made it so safe for the rest of the world.... i was beginning to wonder about all of the incidents that weren'y y2k related... but now they have made it clear it is all over and we can breathe again... infact, we should put on our money a new slogan since commies own and operate the white house...In Slick We Lust! ... I think we should ask slick if he'd just like to stay on for the duration ....why have an election, when we could have America's most wanted erection! .... ooopppppsssss "thats supposed to be "protection" ...

-- SB Ryan G III (sbrg3@juno.com), February 19, 2000.