Nation & world briefing Oregon Daily Emerald - Friday, February 7,2003 - 3
Bush says ‘game is over’ with Hussein
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Chicago Tribune (KRT)
WASHINGTON — Declaring “the
game is over,” President Bush on
Thursday said the United States
would take “whatever action is nec
essary” to disarm Iraq now that the
world has seen Washington’s evi
dence that Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein has lied about possessing
weapons of mass destruction.
In his harshest terms yet about the
crisis in the Persian Gulf, Bush rhetori
cally took the world to the brink of war
but stopped short of declaring it. Bush
said Hussein is throwing away his last
chance for peace and challenged the
U.N. Security Council to approve a
new resolution authorizing die use of
force to disarm Iraq.
“The United States, along with a
growing coalition of nations, is re
solved to take whatever action is nec
essary to defend ourselves and disarm
the Iraqi regime,” Bush said after
meeting with Secretary of State Colin
Powell, one day after Powell present
ed the Security Council extensive U.S.
evidence of Iraq’s efforts to hide its
chemical, biological and nuclear
weapons materials.
“Saddam Hussein has the motive
and the means and the recklessness
and the hatred to threaten the Ameri
can people,” Bush said. “Saddam Hus
sein will be stopped.”
Even as the president spoke, the De
fense Department was ordering the
Army’s storied 101st Airborne Divi
sion to deploy to the gulf region to join
an estimated 110,000 troops already
in position for a possible war. The elite
rapid deployment division played a
key role in the ground phase of the
1991 gulf war.
The Turkish parliament, mean
while, voted Thursday to allow U.S.
troops to renovate Turkish bases for
use in a possible war. Turkish officials
said they expected the parliament
would also soon approve the station
ing of tens of thousands of U.S. combat
troops, which would permit the Pen
tagon to open a crucial northern front
in any war against Baghdad.
With war preparations accelerating,
the State Department issued a “world
wide caution” to all Americans that
they faced a growing danger of attacks
from terrorist groups everywhere in
the world.
Bush dramatized the potential
threat as he recounted Powell’s evi
dence of Iraq’s continuing weapons
programs. The president warned that a
single unmanned Iraqi aircraft, rigged
to spray biological agents, could be
launched off the American coast and
“reach hundreds of miles inland.”
Bush did not specify a deadline for
the Security Council to act, or for his
own decision whether to launch a war.
But White House officials noted that
the president pointedly refrained from
repeating his earlier timeline of
“weeks, not months,” suggesting that
further consultations might not last
even that long.
Nor did Bush repeat that Hussein
still had time to come into compliance
with U.N. disarmament demands.
“Saddam Hussein was given a final
chance. He is throwing that chance
away,” Bush said. “The dictator of Iraq
is making his choice. Now the nations
of the Security Council must make
their own.”
Powell, testifying before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, said he
was confident that Washington was be
ginning to sway skeptical allies.
After speaking with a dozen Securi
ty Council foreign ministers following
his U.N. presentation, Powell said, he
sensed a “shift in attitude” that Iraq
can no longer be permitted to defy the
world body.
“I think there might be perhaps
more support for a second resolution
than some might think,” Powell said.
Publicly, however, the leading Se
curity Council critics of the use of
force —France, Russia and Ger
many — did not back down from
their opposition Thursday.
“We refuse to think that war is in
evitable,” French President Jacques
Chirac said.
But Washington’s closest ally,
Britain, indicated that it was prepar
ing to introduce a Security Council
resolution authorizing force shortly
after chief U.N. weapons inspectors
Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei
make their next report to the coun
cil Feb. 14.
© 2003, Chicago Tribune. Distributed
by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information
Services.
NAbA chief says damage at liftoff not ruled out
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
HOUSTON — In a seeming rebuke
to one of his own top administrators,
NASA chief Sean O’Keefe on Thursday
kept open the possibility that falling
debris on liftoff may have doomed the
space shuttle Columbia.
On Wednesday, shuttle program
manager Ron Dittemore all but dis
missed foam debris impact as the
probable cause for the shuttle disaster.
But on Thursday, O’Keefe said only an
independent panel has the authority
to draw any definitive conclusions.
“We will not have competing posi
tions on this,” O’Keefe said without
making specific reference to debris or
other theories about the catastrophe.
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ings. The intention Is that they will
reach conclusions, and the conclusions
will come from them and only them.”
O’Keefe said the independent
Space Shuttle Mishap Interagency
Investigation Board, which was cre
ated a day after Saturday’s disaster,
would be the final arbiter of what
happened to Columbia. He said the
board would likely add members and
change Its charter to further assure
its independence.
O’Keefe made his brief declaration
from Washington only moments be
fore Dittemore announced from Hous
ton that the agency had turned over
leadership of the probe to the intera
gency panel.
Dittemore said members of the pan
el, which is chaired by retired U.S.
Navy Admiral Harold \V. Gehman, re
ceived a daylong briefing Thursday
from NASA officials in Houston. “We
will follow (Gehman’s) leadership,”
Dittemore said.
Dittemore also appeared to step
away from his earlier comments re
garding the loss of foam debris 80 sec
onds after liftoff. That debris fell from
the vehicle's external fuel tank and
struck the orbited left wing, leading to
speculation that it could have caused
the disaster,
Dittemore said Wednesday that an
earlier analysis by NASA technicians
would seem to discount the debris im
pact as a likely cause. On Thursday, he
stressed that investigators had not
ruled out any possibility.
“It’s had to understand how a
piece of foam falling off the tank
could have been the root cause, but
that is not stopping us from investi
gating that particular event,” said
Ditternore.
Also Thursday, Ditternore raised
more doubts that technicians
would glean useful information
from 32 seconds of corrupted data
transmitted from Columbia mo
ments before it disintegrated over
North Texas, killing all seven astro
nauts aboard.
He said that technicians contin
ue reviewing the transmission, but
may end up reconstructing just two
or three seconds of it.
He also said the crew received an
alarm message related to the loss of
sensor data related to their left wheel
well. He said the crew members were
aware of the sensor reading—a crew
member pushed a button that sent
an electronic acknowledgment to
mission control.
“We were in the process of calling
them (back) when we received loss
of (communication),” said Ditte
more. He said investigators may
never know what happened to the
wheel well.
© 2003, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
Lingering Venezuelan strike creates surreal, ironic life
rrances KODies
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
CARACAS, Venezuela — Deep in
the throes of a political crisis,
Venezuela is a place of absurdities
and ironies.
There’s a strike, but most places are
open. (Just because the lights are out,
it doesn’t mean a business is closed.)
There’s a severe gas shortage — and
traffic jams, too.
More than nine weeks into a nation
wide strike aimed at toppling President
Hugo Chavez, it’s increasingly clear
that the opposition can’t win the quick
victory it once expected. But it is
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equally evident that while the strike
persists, the president can’t govern.
Meanwhile, the routine of civil socie
ty has been transformed into a surreal
drama of long lines, boisterous demon
strations and daily confrontations.
Predictions of mass chaos, looting
and violence haven’t materialized. But
there is very litde gasoline, and rarely a
botde of beer.
Life goes on, but it is not the life
most Venezuelans are accustomed to.
Nearly everyone talks politics, the na
tional obsession, but no one seems ca
pable of finding a political solution.
And Chavez remains in power, so
far refusing to capitulate to opposi
tion demands for an early presiden
tial election.
The defining moment for Monica
Martinez came in October, when
her 9-year-old daughter asked:
“What’s the difference between
communism and dictatorship?”
“Why’s a kid asking such ques
tions?” Martinez wondered, recall
ing that her own pressing issues at
that age were roller-skating and hair
ribbons. If little Mariana had known
the result of her innocent inquiry
beforehand, maybe she’d have
switched subjects.
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Armed with anger, Martinez de
cided she was through with Hugo
Chavez, and joined dissident mili
tary officers protesting at Caracas’
Plaza Francia.
That was on Oct. 22.
More than three months ago.
Martinez is still there.
“Everyone does what they have
to do in the place they have to do
it,” Martinez said. “My place is here.
I am a warrior. We are our country’s
new soldiers.”
Martinez lives in a tent city set up
in Plaza Francia, headquarters for
the opposition movement where a
gunman shot down three people in
December. She quit her job manag
ing a restaurant to join what she
considers a fight for freedom.
She hasn’t stopped by her house
since Dec. 16. The scariest part, she
said, is the fear that hangs heavy in
the dark of 3 a.m.
“I spent Christmas here — talking
to my kids on the telephone,” she re
called. “What do my kids need a moth
er for if they have no country?”
© 2003, The Miami Herald. Distributed
by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information
Services.