The Battalion
Vol. 90 No. 85 GSRS 045360 8 Pages
College Station, Texas
Friday, February 1, 1991
Troops win back Khafji
Iraq claims capture of first U.S. women soldiers
Concerns of terrorism
cancel study abroad trip
DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia (AP)
— Allied forces bombed Iraqi armor
headed toward Kuwait and snatched
back a Saudi Arabian town from de
fiant Iraqi tank troops Thursday af
ter lighting the sky in a fierce all-
night battle.
Iraq said its incursions at Khafji
and other border points signaled the
start of a “thunderous storm” on the
desert floor. Another U.S. plane —
with 14 people aboard — was shot
down behind Iraqi lines.
A U.S. air squadron commander,
Lt. Col. Dick White, spoke to pool
reporters Thursday of intelligence
reports that 800 to 1,000 Iraqi vehi
cles were moving toward the border.
But after returning from a flight, he
said he did not actually see a large
number of vehicles.
Members of Congress said after
briefings from Pentagon officials
that a modified C-130 equipped with
small cannons and machine guns,
part of a Special Operations mission,
was shot down over Kuwait. Sen. Jo
seph Lieberman, D-Conn., said 14
people were on the plane.
Baghdad also claimed it captured
the first women prisoners of the 2-
week-old war. The United States re
fused to confirm the report, but con
ceded that a woman was among two
soldiers missing in action.
Allied aircraft continued to dump
a hailstorm of munitions on Iraq’s
front-line troops in Kuwait, the
crack Republican Guards. Iraq, in
turn, lofted another Scud missile
into the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israeli officials said there were no
casualties.
But a grim ritual began on the
U.S. home front — the military be
gan notifying the families of 11 Ma
rines who were killed in the fighting
around the Saudi town of Khafji.
“He believed in his country,” said
Barbara Anderson, the mother of
Marine Cpl. Stephen Bentzlin, 23, of
San Clemente, Calif. “He was there
for all of us, not only for himself but
for all of us.”
President Bush declared Sunday
to be a national day of prayer. He
asked people of all faiths “to say a
special prayer on that day, a prayer
for peace, a prayer for the safety of
our troops, a prayer for their fami
lies, a prayer for the innocents
caught up in this war.”
Allied military officials played
down the significance of the tank
battle that raged for the better part
of two days in and around KhaQi, on
the Persian Gulf coast below the Ku
wait border.
“About as significant as a mos
quito on an elephant,” grumbled the
allied commander, U.S. Army Gen.
H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
There were hints, however, that
the Iraqis might try to draw more
blood from the allied elephant.
The battle at Khafji “is a first
warning from the faithful men in
Iraq to all U.S. occupiers that they
will leave with their dead in bags and
coffins,” Iraqi radio warned. An
Iraqi newspaper forecast “a thun
derous storm blowing on the Arab
desert.”
During the battle for Khafji, an
other battle raged 40 miles to the
west, near the Kuwaiti town of al-
Wafra, where Saudi troops and U.S.
airplanes exchanged fire with Iracji
positions. U.S. Marines reported evi
dence of five or six Iraqi divisions
massing near there.
At the U.S. military’s daily brief
ing in Riyadh, the Saudi capital,
Army Brig. Gen. Pat Stevens said he
couldn’t confirm the report. But he
did confirm the assessment that
Schwarzkopf delivered the day be
fore — Saddam Hussein is far from
finished..
“I have no doubt, based on what
we’ve seen over the last two or three
days, that he may very well attempt
some further action,” Stevens said.
“He may be looking for some sort of
... victory. He may be looking for
some sort of an action from which he
can gain confidence.”
By JAYME BLASCHKE
Of The Battalion Staff
Threats of terrorism have
canceled at least one Texas A&M
Study Abroad program this se
mester, while putting other trips
in jeopardy.
Study Abroad’s
only formal pro
gram this spring
— a semester in
Italy — was canceled because of
the threat of terrorism.
But Mona Rizk-Finne, director
of the A&M Study Abroad pro
gram, says Study Abroad has no
plans to cancel any summer pro
grams yet.
“We hope the situation im
proves, but we are taking every
precaution,” Finne says.
Finne says no exact figures for
students studying abroad this se
mester are available, but the num
ber is somewhere between 400
and 500.. There are no A&M stu
dents in the Middle East.
She says the Study Abroad of
fice is in daily contact with the
State Department to discuss the
latest developments in the Persian
Gulf.
“No other universities have
canceled their programs, so we’re
just following suit,” Finne says.
Stanford University, however,
recalled all of its students from its
study abroad program in Italy
shortly after the war erupted.
Dr. Carolyn Adair, director of
Student Activities, says students
have expressed concern about the
threat of terrorism on the Student
Activities trip to Italy.
“We haven’t had the response
from the students as in recent
years,” Adair says. “Some people
have signed up, but we don’t have
enough people to go yet.”
Adair says the Italy trip has not
been canceled, but the possibility
See Terrorism/Page 8
STUDY ABROAD
Former official
offers expertise
as honorary
guest speaker
By TROY D. HALL
Of The Battalion Staff
Former Lt. Gov. William Hobby
Jr. will meet with Texas A&M stu
dents and faculty members next
week to provide expertise on how
Texas government works.
Hobby, the first guest in a new
Distinguished Lecturer in Residence
program, will discuss issues like the
state’s financial problems in classes
next week.
“There is no question this year’s
state legislature faces the most se
rious financial crisis it has faced in
the over 18 years I have been di
rectly involved in government,”
Hobby says.
The University and Bryan-Col-
lege Station will benefit from his
long-term political experience in
Texas, he says.
“Given the current environment
of state government, I’m going to
give a general talk about the finan
cial and educational problems facing
the state,” Hobby says.
A public lecture will begin at 7
p.m. Thursday in Rudder Forum.
Hobby also will attend a graduate
public administration class and an
undergraduate honors political sci
ence class.
“I am extremely excited about the
program and honored to be the first
distinguished lecturer,” he says. “I
hope I can make some important
contributions to the program.”
The Distinguished Visiting Lec
turer in Residence program asks a
prominent political figure to spend a
See Hobby/Page 8
Gig ’em troops
RICHARD S. JAMES/The Battalion
Gerald Hardt, a senior management major from Houston (top), ’em troops” sign Thursday at Puryear Hall in support of U.S. sol-
and Chris Ribardo, a junior history major from Bryan, hang a “Gig diers fighting in the Persian Gulf War.
Arms control
expert says
U.S.S.R. slips
to ‘baddays’
By MIKE LUMAN
Of The Battalion Staff
The Soviet Union is drifting back
to the “bad old days” of public op
pression, secret police terror tactics
and civil rights crackdowns, said a
Texas A&M official and former
arms control negotiator.
Dr. Ronald L. Hatchett, deputy
director for programs at A&M’s
Mosher Institute for Defense Stud
ies, said Thursday recent military ac
tion in Lithuania is one of many in
dications the Soviet government is
returning to central control.
Other indications are the “sicke
ning” choices of hardliners to fill va
cant Kremlin posts and the firing
and resignation of several reform
ists, he said.
Alexander Yakolev, Soviet Presi
dent Mikhail Gorbachev’s right-
hand-man since 1985, stepped down
from his post last week.
Hatchett described his replace
ment, Gennadi Yanayev, as “a hard
line thug, a throwback, a bully from
the old school.”
Gorbachev selected Yanayev for
the post. Hatchett said he does not
know if the decision was personal
choice or Communist Party influ
ence.
Soviet Foreign Minister Edward
Shevardnadze resigned Dec. 20.
Vadim Bakatin, a liberal and for
mer head of the Soviet Internal Min
istry, recently was fired and replaced
by hardliner and former KGB oper
ative Boris Pugo.
See Soviet/Page 8
Soviet lawmen vote to suspend army, police patrols
MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian
legislature voted Thursday to ask
President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to
suspend what it called unconstitu
tional and potentially destabilizing
plans to mount joint army and po
lice patrols in Soviet cities as early as
Friday.
The effect of the vote was impos
sible to gauge in the increasingly
tense Soviet political atmosphere,
but it reflected anxiety among Rus
sia’s federation president and other
reformers that hard-liners were
preparing to take control.
“Who knows what might happen
in the next 24-hours?” federation
president Boris N. Yeltsin said dur
ing debate on the resolution. The
Russian legislature, on a 130-13
vote, asked Gorbachev to suspend
plans for the patrols while the issue
was reviewed by the national Con
stitutional Surveillance Committee
and considered by the elected gov
ernments of the 15 Soviet republics.
Soviet officials last week dis
closed a decree signed secretly on
Dec. 29 by Defense Minister Dmitri
Yazov and Interior Minister Boris
Pugo authorizing the joint patrols
as a means to fight crime.
On Tuesday, Gorbachev estab
lished a committee to oversee the
patrols and said they could not oc
cur without the agreement of local
elected governments. Pugo also
said the patrols would not take
place without local consent and
would not involve armored person
nel carriers.
But apprehension increased
Thursday that hard-liners in the
Communist Party, the military, the
police and the KGB would send the
patrols into the streets on Friday in
an effort to consolidate what ap
pears to be their growing influence
over Gorbachev.
The Russian resolution said in
part that “using armed military
forces in the streets of cities could
lead to a destabilization of the polit
ical situation, to limits or violations
of the rights of free citizens, includ
ing the rights of the troops.”
Parts of the patrol decree vio
lated constitutional provisions cov
ering emergency powers, it said.
Man brings
By ISSELLE MCALLISTER
Of The Battalion Staff
Dr. Fred Ruppel has his own way of putting
boring, mundane statistics in a new light.
Ruppel, a Texas A&M assistant professor of
international agricultural trade and finance,
translates large numbers into tangible, under
standable terms.
Taking unofficial spring enrollment figures of
38,376 students, Ruppel visualizes a 14.5-mile
long line of people stretching from the Pavilion
to the Brazos River. He says ifjust the 30,809 un
dergraduates joined hands, they would circle
campus more than five times.
Ruppel says he has been comparing statistics to
common experiences since he read “The Little
Prince” by Antoine de Saint Exupery.
The little prince in the book says the world’s
population would fit in a 20-square-mile area.
A&M statistics to life
When he first read the statement, Ruppel says he
thought the idea “preposterous,” but later found
it was true.
He says more than 3 billion people, about 60
percent of the world’s population, could fit in an
area from College Station to Navasota to Bren-
ham to Caldwell.
Ruppel took his interest in converting statistics
and applied it to A&M students.
A&M Registrar Donald Carter says of the
38,376 students, 30,809 are undergraduates,
6,924 are graduate students and 643 are profes
sional students.
A total of 22,472 men and 15,904 women are
enrolled this semester.
According to Ruppel’s figures, however, those
totals can be expressed the following way:
• If all men were stacked, they would make a
See Statistics/Page 7
Oil clean-up woes
Lack of microbe research
worries A&M scientist
By GREG MT.JOY
Of The Battalion Staff
“Oil-eating” microbes are an un
tested and potentially dangerous
method of cleaning up oil spills and
should not be used m the Persian
Gulf, warns a Texas A&M reseach
scientist.
Dr. Mahlon C. Kennicutt II of the
College of Geosciences’ Geochemical
and Environmental Research Group
says the microbes have not been
tested enough in field situations and
could worsen the gulf spill.
“To be effective on a spill, the mi
crobes need to be used early in order
to break up the oil quickly,” Kenni
cutt says. “Proponents of the micro
bes claim clean-up can be finished in
hours, but I have heard it can take
days, weeks or even months.”
Kennicutt also warns oil-eating
microbes, called bioremediation,
also might convert some of the oil’s
less harmful compounds into even
more dangerous ones, creating
greater environmental danger.
“Generally, the structure of the
compounds created is not always
known,” Kennicutt says. “The ones
created could be even more toxic.”
Kennicutt says most people mis
takenly believe microbes “eat” oil.
“In reality, microbes transform oil
into other compounds, which mi
crobe proponents say are more wa
ter soluable, or easier to break up,”
he says. “It is not likely, however, the
more complex hydrocarbons — the
more toxic ones — are broken up
completely.”
More investigation into the use of
microbes is needed before any at
tempt to clean up the Persian Gulf
spill, Kennicutt says.
He also says he is concerned the
microbes have not been sufficiently
tested in Texas.
Kennicutt says microbes suffer
the same disadvantages as dispers
ants against a spill as large as the one
washing ashore in Saudi Arabia.
“I am skeptical that the microbes
would fare any better than more
conventional methods against this
spill,” he says. “With so large a sur
face area, there is no easy way to ap
ply the technique. Even if it were, it
is doubtful it could reduce the spill
this many days later.”
The war in the gulf poses a great
threat to clean-up efforts, Kennicutt
says. Because the spill could not be
immediately attacked, the spill might
See Microbes/Page 8