Texas A&M
Battalion
Middle East panic
Invasion leaves Iraqi oil,
Kuwaiti citizens stranded.
See Pages 3, 4
I.89 No. 186 USPS 045360 6 Pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, August 8,1990
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Nations agree to send
troops to Monrovia
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) —
West African nations agreed
Tuesday to send troops to Libe
ria, where a rebel leader was
holding foreign hostages and
threatening to attack U.S. Ma
rines unless nations intervened to
end the civil war.
The hostages held by Prince
Johnson include one American.
He presented eight of them to re
porters Monday and said they
would not go free until a peace
keeping force comes to this West
African nation, where 5,000 peo
ple have died in the 7-month-old
civil war.
It was not immediately clear if
the deployment of the five-nation
West African force would prompt
Johnson to free the captives.
In Washington, State Depart
ment spokeswoman Margaret
Tutwiler said a representative of
Johnson’s group had informed
U.S. officials Tuesday the hos
tages were all well and would not
be harmed.
The Economic Community of
West African States, meeting in
Gambia, did not say when the sol
diers would go to Liberia. They
said the troops were being de
ployed “in the interest of the Af
rican people as a whole and for
the maintenance of international
peace and security.”
The beleagured Monrovian
President Doe repeatedly has ap
pealed for international interven
tion. Envoys of rebel leader
Charles Taylor, a rival of John
son, told the Gambia meeting
they might accept such a force.
Taylor previously threatened to
attack any foreign troops sent to
Liberia.
Some of the 235 Marines air
lifted into Monrovia to evacuate
Americans and other foreign na
tionals took up defensive posi
tions within the walled U.S. Em
bassy compound after Johnson’s
threat.
Tutwiler said they were there
to protect the embassy and “will
do that with force if necessary.”
The State Department said
Johnson was holding 14 or 15
hostages, who were seized Mon
day night from the Hotel Africa
on the northwestern outskirts of
Monrovia. The British Foreign
Office said there were 16, includ
ing four Britons.
Bush sends troops to Saudi Arabia
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi
dent Bush on Tuesday dispatched
American warplanes and ground
troops to Saudi Arabia, where
sources said a multinational military
force was being created to defend
the vulnerable oil kingdom from at
tack by Iraq.
Capitol Hill sources said Egypt
and Morocco were joining the effort,
part of an accelerating international
response to Saddam Hussein’s inva
sion of Kuwait.
While using an oil embargo in an
effort to reverse the Kuwaiti inva
sion, allied forces hoped the unusual
multinational defense of Saudi Ara
bia would deter Saddam’s million-
man Iraqi army from storming the
Saudi oil fields as well.
There was no announcement
from the White House of the mili
tary moves. Word came from au
thoritative Pentagon sources and
from Capitol Hill.
Plans drawn up by U.S. officials
called for Arab soldiers from the re
gion to join in the international force
and serve as a “trip wire” warning to
Saddam.
Saudi Arabia has never before
agreed to stationing U.S. military
power on its soil.
Pentagon sources, who spoke on
condition of not being identified by
name, said they expected Army
troops from several points to be dis
patched.
The sources said the units are ex
pected to include the 18th Airborne
Corps from Fort Bragg, N.C.; the
24th Division (Mechanized) from
Fort Stewart, Ga., and the 101st Air
borne Division from Fort Campbell,
Ky., near Clarksville, Tenn.
The role of the airborne divisions
is to secure air bases, so that other
troops, aircraft and equipment can
soil — always a sensitive issue — if
the Americans were part of an inter
national unit.
Pentagon sources did confirm one
military move, saying the carrier
USS Eisenhower would pass
through the Suez Canal Tuesday
night en route to the Persian Gulf.
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney was
in Egypt Tuesday asking permission
Saddam indicated he had no intention of leaving
Kuwait and had every indication of staying and claiming it
as his own.”
— Joseph Wilson,
U.S. charge d’affaires in Iraq
be sent in to support the ground
forces, other sources said.
Fitzwater declined to confirm or
deny the reports of a major deploy
ment of U.S. troops and aircraft to
help defend the vulnerable, oil-rich
Saudi kingdom.
“We’re not playing games. There
are strategic reasons why I can’t tell
you,” Fitzwater said. He declared,
“We believe there is an imminent
threat to Saudi Arabia.”
One source in a position to know
said the Saudis had agreed to the sta
tioning of American forces on Saudi
for that movement as well as seeking
further cooperative steps from
Egypt.
Later, he traveled to Morocco to
discuss the situation with King Has-
san and was due back in Washington
late Tuesday night from his whirl
wind tour that also included a stop in
Saudi Arabia.
At the White House, Fitzwater
said Bush told his Cabinet “that he
views the Iraqi troops lined up in
Kuwait facing Saudi Arabia as a
threat to United States security in
terests.”
Fitzwater reported that in a tense,
two-hour session Monday between
Saddam and the highest ranking
American official in Iraq, Charge
d’affaires Joseph Wilson, “Saddam
indicated he had no intention of
leaving Kuwait and had every indi
cation of staying and claiming it as
his own.”
The Iraqi leader underscored that
reading in a message over Baghdad
radio in which he defended the inva
sion as necessary to correct flawed
regional borders drawn up by colo
nial powers.
The invasion marked “a new pe
riod in which the sun will shine on us
in the coming days,” he was quoted
as saying.
While President Bush conferred
with his Cabinet and visited CIA
headquarters in Langley, Va., Che
ney consulted in Egypt with Presi
dent Hosni Mubarak.
Pentagon sources said Cheney
had intended to sound out Mubarak
on Egyptian participation and the
prospect of broad Arab cooperation
in a multinational force to protect
the Saudis, whose army numbers
only 38,000 troops.
The creation of an international
ground force to defend Saudi Ara
bia while American, British and
French air power formed an aerial
deterrent would be the “ideal situa
tion,” commented Sen. Sam Nunn,
D-Ga., chairman of the Senate
Armed Services Committee.
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Traffic makes
OTRAK plan
necessary
By CHRIS VAUGHN
I Of The Battalion Staff
WIisB ^ district engineer from the state
aid Tuesday night that complete re-
onstruction of Wellborn Road and
.—,he nearby railroad through the
Texas A&M campus was necessary
deal with increasing traffic loads
naking travel unsafe.
The State Department of High-
vays and Public Transportation, le
' ' Ca
ed
y District Engineer Carol Ziegler,
resented plans for the LOTRAK
roject before fielding questions
Tuesday to more than 100 people at
he Brazos Center.
The LOTRAK project is the
planned reconstruction of four miles
, )f Wellborn Road and the railroad
"P'H racks between Villa Maria Road and
farm Market Road 2818.
Under the $39.7 million project,
iWellborn would become a divided
etorf freeway with on and off ramps and
he railroad in the median.
Wellborn and the tracks would be
dropped to approximately 20 feet
See LOTRAK/Page 6
President of Pakistan
ejects government
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) —
An army-supported caretaker gov
ernment assumed power Tuesday
and ordered former Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto and other top offi
cials not to leave the country-
One diplomat called it a “constitu
tional coup.”
Bhutto, dismissed by the presi
dent on Monday, spent her first day
out of office meeting with former
Cabinet ministers to chart a strategy
for their party, which is now deeply
divided and demoralized.
Bhutto, members of her govern
ment and members of the disbanded
federal legislature were ordered to
remain in Pakistan, spokesmen for
the new and former governments
said.
Pakistan appeared calm after the
action and troops deployed to main
tain order began returning to their
barracks Monday night.
President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in
voked his constitutional authority
and dismissed Bhutto’s government,
alleging widespread corruption, mis
use of power, judicial intimidation
and failure to curb ethnic violence
that has claimed more than 400 lives
since May in her home province of
Sindh.
Bhutto called the charges baseless
and said she had only one demand:
“Hold fair and free elections, on
schedule, and let the people decide.”
The president appointed opposi
tion leader Mustafa Jatoi as acting
prime minister, set new elections for
Oct. 24 and declared a state of emer
gency that gave the new government
sweeping powers to suspend all laws
and individual rights.
But many members of Bhutto’s
Pakistan Peoples Party said privately
that the link between Bhutto and
grass roots members has been almost
severed, largely because of her un
willingness to compromise and alle
gations that senior government offi
cials used their positions to make
huge fortunes.
“We simply blew it,” one former
minister said, speaking on condition
of anonymity.
The president’s decision took
Bhutto and senior officials by sur
prise.
But some opposition officials said
the president started drafting the or
der two months ago after telling
Bhutto to reform her government.
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By MIKE LUMAN
nOflhe Battalion Staff
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doustt
mncil
S,
landing on a
platform of environmental issues,
Texas A&M graduate student Mi
chael Worsham is running for the
U.S. House of Representatives as a
write-in candidate this fall.
Worsham, an Independent, faces
iRepublican incumbent Joe Barton
nd Democrat John Welch in the
ov. 6 election for the 6th Congres-
ional District of Texas.
“I have concerns about problems
n the state, nation and world,”
orsham said. “Congress is not ef-
ective enough in addressing envi-
rO(t fonmental issues.”
He said he had ideas for action on
a range of environmental concerns.
The Environmental Protection
^ Agency should mandate more recy-
ling of solid waste, he said. A 25-
percent recycling level is the present
EPA goal.
“I would push for more,”
Worsham said. “That’s the mini
mum goal they should be shooting
for.”
The U.S. Department of Energy
also considered classifying certain
ow-level radioactive waste as being
below regulatory concern,” he said.
“I think it would substantially af
fect public health,” he said.
Pesticides are another issue
Worsham stresses.
He said the Farm Bill, now before
Congress, should ban imported food
ontaining pesticides U.S. producers
ire not allowed to use.
He is a proponent of low input
ustainable agriculture, meaning
arming practices that require small
Photo by Eric H. Roalson
Michael Worsham
amounts of chemicals, water, and Worsham plans to distribute signs
money. and bumper stickers and possibly or-
He also favors elimination of fed- ganize a mail appeal and fund-rais-
eral tobacco subsidies. Nicotine is an ing event.
addictive drug and smoking is a He said he started Aggies for Mi-
leading cause of preventable death, chael Worsham for Congress, a Uni-
he said. versity-recognized group allowed to
Worsham said he believes he has a set up tables on campus,
chance of being elected. The decision to run for the House
“Obviously, I’m not going to be was made in May after much
spending as much as other Candida- thought, he said.
tes,” he said. Worsham, a civil engineering stu-
He advocates election reforms, dent, is a founder of Bryan-College
such as publicly-financed campaigns Station’s Texas Environmental Ac-
and the elimination of political ac- tion Coalition. He also has been ac
tion committees. five in Sierra Club.
B-CS turns lights on crime
Residents mingle at National Night Out
Photos by Eric H. Roalson
McDonald’s Hamburglar (top) entertained children while
(above) Kyangeun Lee, age 7, danced with Betty Lemay of the
UPD Crime Prevention Unit at the University apartments Tues
day at the National Night Out party.
By KATHY COX
Of The Battalion Staff
College Station residents
helped make National Night Out
a success by gathering outside to
take bites out of crime and pizza.
A party at the University
Owned Apartments office at the
intersection of South College and
University Drive highlighted the
evening.
The party, sponsored by the
University Apartment Council of
Texas Aggies, the University Po
lice Department, The Battalion,
Pizza Hut and Pepsi was for all
A&M students, faculty and staff.
“Texas A&M will not tolerate
crime,” Lt. Bert Kretzschmar said
to the crowd of about 200 people.
“We’re going to make A&M a safe
place to be.”
Kretzschmar urged residents
to report any suspicious activity
when it occurs and to get to know
their neighbors.
“This is about neighbor help
ing neighbor,” he said. “We need
to take the opportunity away
from criminals.”
In an interview, Kretzschmar
said the party sponsors chose the
University Owned Apartments to
host the party because it is “truly
a neighborhood area for A&M.”
Also, he said the apartments
are largely an international com
munity and the party gave resi
dents who may rarely see one an
other a chance to get acquainted.
Sandra Burke, president of the
University Apartment Council,
said she was pleased with the
turnout.
“Now I’ve just got to keep the
momentum going,” she said.
The momentum kept rolling as
parents, children and singles
turned out to take advantage of
the free pizza, Pepsi and enter
tainment.
Children and adults danced to
music provided by a disc jockey as
the McDonald’s Hamburglar,
McGruff The Crime Dog and
Larry The Seatbelt Dummy min
gled with the crowd.
Hamburglar helped judge a
coloring contest for the children.
The Aggie Wranglers and in
ternational music by a Mexican
band and a Chinese lutanist
rounded out the evening.
Donna Atkins, who is working
on her Ph.D. in adult education,
said she took a break from study
ing to join the party.
“I saw all the police cars and
heard the fire trucks,” she said.
University Police officers and
members of the College Station
Fire Department were at the
party, and children were allowed
to climb into the fire trucks and
blow the horns.
The theme of this year’s Na
tional Night Out was “Lights on
Means Lights Out for Crime.”
Bryan and College Station resi
dents turned on their lights at 9
p.m. for the U.S. Air Force
weather satellite photograph of
North America.
Kretzschmar said B-CS lights
showed up on last year’s photo
graph.