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Since 1900 | Volume 106, Issue 88 \ Thursday, January27, 2005
1,409
U.S. Death toll in Iraq
$80 billion
additional funds requested
from President Bush for Iraq
31
U.S. soldiers killed
in helicopter crash
Wednesday
n Americans killed
in car bombings
Wednesday
Distance militants are asking Iraqis to stay
away from voting booths Jan. 30
U.S. sees deadliest day in Iraq
BY IASON KEYSER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A U.S. helicopter
crashed in a desert sandstorm in the ear
ly morning darkness Wednesday, killing
the 30 Marines and one Navy sailor
aboard. Six other troops died in insur
gent ambushes in the deadliest day for
Americans since the Iraq war began
nearly two years ago.
Only days before Iraq’s crucial elec
tions Sunday, militants set off at least
eight car bombings that killed 13 peo
ple and injured 40 others, including 11
Americans. The guerrillas also carried
out a string of attacks nationwide
against schools that will serve as
polling centers.
In Washington, President Bush called
on Iraqis to defy terrorism and go to the
polls despite relentless insurgent attacks.
He said it was a “very discouraging” day
when the U.S. death toll for the war rose
above 1,400.
The CH-53E Super Stallion was
carrying personnel from the 1st Ma
rine Division on a security mission in
support of the election when it went
down about 1:20 a.m. near the town
of Rutbah, about 220 miles west of
Baghdad, the military said.
The crash occurred during severe
weather, but its cause was still under in
vestigation, said Army Gen. John
Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command.
An Accuweather map showed sand
storms Wednesday in the western region
of Iraq near the Jordanian border where
the crash took place.
A search and rescue team was at the
site. The victims were 30 Marines and
one sailor, said Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the
top Marine commander in Iraq — the
most American service members to die
in a single incident since the March 2003
invasion of Iraq.
The deadliest previous incident for
U.S. troops was also a helicopter crash: a
November 2003 collision of two Black
Hawk helicopters that killed 17. Before
Wednesday’s bloodshed, the most
Americans killed in one day came on the
invasion’s third day — March 23, 2003
— when 28 troops were killed during
the U.S. military’s drive to take Baghdad
and topple Saddam Hussein.
The U.S. military has not seen such a
high loss of life in one day in 15 years —
since an explosion ripped through a gun
turret on the USS Iowa during a training
exercise in the Caribbean in April 1989,
killing 47 sailors.
Iraqi security forces and civilians have
borne the brunt of violence in Iraq, with
bombings often killing scores of people
at a time.
Violence has only increased ahead of
Sunday’s election, which will create a
275-member National Assembly and re
gional legislatures. Sunni Muslim ex
tremists have threatened to sabotage the
election, and many Sunni clerics have
called for a boycott because of the pres
ence of U.S. and other foreign troops.
IRAQ, page 16
General says severe weather at crash site
Military officials are investigating what caused the crash of a
U.S. military transport helicopter near Rutbah, Iraq, that went down
in severe weather, killing 30 Marines and one Navy sailor.
Caspian Sea
IRAQ
SYRIA
Baghdad
M Low pleasure
r system \
Monday L
JORDAN
SAUDI
ARABIA
KUWAIT
Persian
Gulf;
Spread of turkey
sandstorm, by day
Helicopter
crash
/killed 31
IRAN
CH-53E
Super
Stallion
Largest U.S. military
helicopter used for transit
of supplies and troops
Iraq sandstorms
► Most common
between January.-April Tuesday
► More frequent in desert
because heating of the air
causes the lower atmosphere ".."
to become unstable Wednesday
0 100 mi
oTdOkm
SOURCE: AccuWeather
AP
FILLING A NEED
Tim Bobosky | Photographer
___-.
University
students and
Oregon Student
Public Interest
Research Group
members
Daniella Marchick
and Froheil Chand
watch a table
Wednesday for
community
members
interested in
donating clothing
for those in need.
As part of OS
PIRG’s hunger
and homeless
campaign, the
group has placed
bins in University
sororities and will
be near the
intersection of
East 13th Avenue
and University
Street through
Friday. “We want
to try to keep our
friends warm,"
Marchick said.
IN BRIEF
Western Oregon's
graduation rate low
ALBANY, N.Y. — The State Uni
versity of New York Board of
Trustees on Tuesday ordered ad
ministrators to improve graduation
rates, some of which are so poor
that at some campuses three in
four students don’t graduate with
in four years.
Unnecessarily lengthy stays in
college drain tax dollars, block po
tential openings in the classroom
and delay students from starting
productive professional careers,
SUNY Board Chairman Thomas
Egan said.
Chancellor Robert King said he
offered a plan to improve four-year
graduation rates that sought a
higher $600 tuition increase in the
fall and automatic tuition increas
es for incoming classes tied to a
higher education cost index after
that. Much of that funding would
go to hiring more instructors and
opening up more sections of
courses as long as state aid grew,
King said.
But Egan said more money
isn’t the answer, pointing out
SUNY’s total budget has increased
to $8 billion from $5 billion over
the past 10 years.
A report released this month by
The Education TYust, a national
nonprofit group that studies higher
education, compared similar
schools nationwide to the gradua
tion rate of SUNY at Plattsburgh.
Using six-year rates, it found
Plattsburgh graduated 58.9 per
cent of its freshman class, com
pared to 65.9 percent at
Millersville University in Pennsyl
vania, and 31 percent at Western
Oregon University. It also noted
the higher rates at private colleges
like Amherst and Williams in
Massachusetts graduated more
than 95 percent of students within
six years. Plattsburgh was credited
as having a better rate than 21 of
25 similar colleges.
— The Associated Press
Expert says roles of sex, gender
crucial to international law
BY KARA HANSEN
NEWS REPORTER
Women are largely absent from dis
cussions of war and conflict, but their
roles are crucial to understanding vio
lence at an international level, interna
tional law expert Hilary Charlesworth
told more than 200 people attending an
annual Wayne Morse Center for Law
and Politics lecture on Wednesday.
“(Sex and gender) are crucial to
understanding the continuing Iraq
crisis and the war on terrorism,”
Charlesworth told the students and
community members who filled
every seat in a Knight Law Center
lecture hall, with the overflow of lis
teners spilling onto stairs and leaning
against walls.
Margie Paris, associate dean for aca
demic affairs at the law school, said de
spite their importance, the issues of sex
and gender are often left out of tradi
tional accounts of war.
“The arena of international law has
long suffered from this perspective —
women are largely invisible,” Paris
said. “International law has a gender
and that gender is male.”
Charlesworth, the 24th holder of the
Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics,
began her speech with a discussion of
Morse’s enthusiasm for international
law. However, she said she wasn’t en
tirely sure whether Morse would ap
prove of her contemporary topic, “The
Missing Voice: Women and the War
in Iraq.”
Charlesworth said the events of
Sept. 11, as the foundation for the war
in Iraq, offer a star ting point in illustrat
ing the absence of women in conflict.
“Immediately after, they were invisi
ble except portrayals alongside males
as victims,” Charlesworth said.
None of the Sept. 11 plane hijackers
LAW, page 16
Nicole Barker | Photographer
Hilary Charlesworth, 24th holder of the Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics, speaks
at the Law Center Wednesday night. Her lecture was part of the series entitled
"The Changing Geopolitical Order Implications for Peace and Stability."