The Battalion
Vol. 92 No. 133 (10 pages) 1893 - A Century of Service to Texas A&M - 1993 Monday, April 19,1993
U.S. bombs destroy Iraqi radar tracking site
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - A U.S. warplane
destroyed an Iraqi radar tracking site
south of the no-fly zone over northern
Iraq on Sunday after the aircraft was
threatened, a Defense Department
spokesman said.
The plane, one of two on a routine
monitoring patrol in the zone, was not
fired on but “the crew felt threatened,"
said DOD spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Brian
Cullin.
White House spokeswoman Lorraine
Voles said the action "is consistent with
our policy that when our forces feel
threatened, we're going to respond."
Both aircraft safely returned to their
operating base at Incirlik, Turkey.
Iraq's official news agency reported
three Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the
incident. The Iraqi News Agency, moni
tored by the British Broadcasting Corp. in
Cyprus, quoted a Foreign Ministry
spokesman as saying the attack was
provocative, hostile behavior.
The spokesman, who was not named,
said the attack occurred 33 miles south of
the oil city of Mosul, apparently placing it
outside the allied-enforced no-fly zone.
The two U.S. Air Force F-4G Wild
Weasel fighters were in the no-fly zone
throughout the incident but were illumi
nated by the radar operating south of the
36th parallel, Cullin said.
"They operated under the guidelines
that when you're illuminated it is consid
ered to be a threat," he said.
The 36th parallel marks the border of
the no-fly zone over northern Iraq set up
to protect Kurds from Iraqi attack after
the Persian Gulf War.
"One of the two F-4s in the flight re
sponded by firing a single HARM (high
speed, anti-radiation missile) at the Iraqi
radar," the Defense Department said in a
written statement.
Officials believe the site was destroyed
because "the radar ceased illuminating
after the impact of the missile," Cullin
said. He said no immediate assessment
was available and there had been no re
sponse from the Iraqi government to the
incident.
'City of
Angels'
rejoices
the calm
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — Churchgoers re
joiced as the calm after the verdict in the
Rodney King civil rights case held Sun
day. Police, saying the quiet was hard to
believe, considered whether to pull some
firepower off the streets.
Cries of "Amen" rippled through the
First AME Church congregation as the
mayor, the governor and others lauded
the convictions of two officers.
"We come to praise God for peace in
our city and justice in our courtrooms,"
Mayor Tom Bradley told churchgoers.
"(Police Chief) Willie Williams and I
pleaded for peace ... we knew we were
ready to preserve the peace in this city."
Police had prepared for the worst,
fearing a repeat of the violence^a year
ago when a state jury acquitted four
white officers of beating King, a black
motorist. All 7,700 city officers were mo
bilized and 600 National Guard troops
stood by in armories.
But peace prevailed after a federal
jury on Saturday convicted Sgt. Stacey
Koon, who supervised the beating, and
Officer Laurence Powell, who struck the
most baton blows, of violating King's
civil rights after a high-speed chase on
March 3, 1991. Officer Theodore Briseno
and Timothy Wind, a rookie officer fired
after the beating, were acquitted.
"It stayed quiet," Los Angeles Sher
iff's Deputy Britta Tubbs said Sunday.
"No major incidents. It's hard to be
lieve."
King, who made a dramatic appeal for
calm during the riots a year ago, didn't
make a statement after the federal trial.
Although some were dissatisfied that
only two officers were found guilty, a
fragile calm settled over a city fraught
with tension since the night the beating
- captured on videotape by an amateur
cameraman — shocked the nation.
At the church in riot-scarred South
Central Los Angeles, the Rev. Jesse Jack-
son preached a message of rebuilding the
area and looking for hope in its ruins.
"I know that behind every dark cloud
there is a silver lining," he told about
2,500 people. "But sometimes you have
to pray to God for some insight to see the
silver lining."
"The beating of Rodney King, that's
the cloud," he said. "What's the silver
lining? It exposed (former Police Chief)
Daryl Gates irreversibly."
Speaking of the four defendants in
King's federal civil rights trial "two are
going to a physical jail, two are going to
a mental jail," he said. At that, the
packed congregation erupted in ap
plause.
Gov. Pete Wilson told worshippers:
"We've not only got to rebuild Los Ange
les, we've got to rebuild it better than we
found it."
Williams, hired after Gates retired un
der pressure last summer, credited the
police and community for keeping the
peace.
Parents 7 Weekend concludes
BILLYMORAN/The Battalion
Dave Bland of Shreveport records his son Brian as he marches review. Bland was in town to visit his son during Parent's
with his outfit of the Corps of Cadets to Kyle Field for the corps Weekend.
The Holocaust
Memory key
to avoiding
reoccurrence,
survivor says
By BELINDA BLANCARTE
The Battalion
People need to remember the Holo
caust and make sure nothing like it ever
happens again, survivor Mike Jacobs
said Sunday at a Holocaust memorial
service in the All Faiths Chapel.
"I was in the ghettos and concentra
tion camps for five and a half years," Ja
cobs said to about 70 people. "I never
gave up hope; I never gave up belief. I
knew I was going to survive."
Jacobs is the founder of The Dallas
Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies.
He discussed his experience in obser
vance of Yom Hasho'ah, Holocaust
Memorial Day.
Reliving the beginning of the Nazi rise
to power, Jacobs recalled watching Ger
man soldiers invade synagogues and
bum prayer books during World War II.
"I remember looking at the pile of
prayer books and scrolls as a match was
lit," he said. "The books were burning
and it started raining. Again, the books
were burning and again it started rain
ing.
"When the books stopped burning, it
stopped raining. I believe that was a mir
acle," he said.
During the war, Jacobs was moved
from camp to camp where he was as
signed various duties.
"I was tortured and I was beaten, but I
See Holocaust/Page 3
Gulf War benefited from
Vietnam, analyst says
'New relations' remain under fire
By KEVIN LINDSTROM
The Battalion
Decisions made by American armed
forces after the Vietnam War contributed
greatly to U.S. success during the Persian
Gulf War, said a U.S. military analyst.
"Most of the wiz-bang weapons that
we watched in the Persian Gulf all started
their research and development process
in the 1970s," said Dr. Caroline Ziemke,
an analyst with the Institute for Defense
Analysis in Arlington, Va.
Speaking Thursday to an audience of
60 in the MSC, Ziemke said, after the
Vietnam War U.S. armed forces had to
deal with an increased need for U.S. pres
ence in the world and a hostile Congress
that was cutting military spending.
"It was evaluated that the risk that
America was going to war within five or
10 years after the Vietnam War was very
low," she said. "But there was an increas
ing long-term threat of a major war
around 1985."
Ziemke said the armed forces deter
mined that the best way to deal with the
long term threat was to gamble that there
would not be a conflict in the short term
and prepare for the long term war by up
grading their equipment and strategy.
"The services had to make tradeoffs,"
she said. "They eventually made the de
cision to funnel as much of their funding
as they could into modernization pro
grams that led to the new weapons that
we saw in the Gulf War."
See Vietnam/Page 3
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - A "road map" for
normalizing relations with Vietnam, laid
down by the Bush administration and
followed by President Clinton, is in tat
ters due to a document suggesting Viet
namese duplicity on the POW-MIA issue.
Hanoi says the 1972 report, discovered
by a Harvard University researcher in the
archives of the Communist Party in
Moscow, is a fabrication. The Pentagon is
urging caution, saying the document
needs further study.
The report says Vietnam was holding
1,205 American prisoners of war in 1972,
twice the number eventually released.
Regardless of whether the document is
real, the long road back to normal rela
tions has again become longer.
"The so-called road map for normaliz
ing relations with Vietnam should be
rolled up, put on a dark shelf and forgot
ten," said Richard Christian of the Amer
ican Legion.
Christian joined representatives of vet
erans groups, POW-MIA families and
members of Congress on Capitol Hill last
week to oppose any improvements in ties
with Hanoi until the POW issue is re
solved.
Krueger leads Senate race with 23 percent.
(3% margin
of error)
Richard Fisher 5%
Joe Barton 7%
Jack Fields 7%
Kay Bailey Hutchison 1 2%
£ Bob Kruger 23%
Olhere/UndecidecMd^yJ
MACK HARRISON/The Battalion
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN — Interim U.S. Sen. Bob
Krueger has a lock on a runoff spot in the
special Senate election to replace Lloyd
Bentsen, but at least four candidates have
a chance at the second slot, according to a
new poll.
The poll, conducted for the Austin
American-Statesman and the San Antonio
Express-News, found that 23 percent of
respondents plan to vote for Krueger, a
Democrat, in the May 1 election.
Republican state treasurer Kay Bailey
Hutchison was favored by 12 percent, fol
lowed by Republican U.S. Reps. Jack
Fields and Joe Barton with 7 percent each
and Democrat Richard Fisher with 5 per
cent. Thirty-nine percent of respondents
poll indicates
said they were undecided.
There are 23 candidates seeking to re
place Bentsen, who left the seat to work
as President Clinton's Treasury secretary.
If, as expected, no one wins a majority,
a runoff between the top two candidates
will be held, probably on June 5.
The poll, with a 3.5 percent margin of
error, was conducted April 8-13 among
801 likely voters statewide.
A&M Muster: 1993 marks 110th anniversary
By JASON COX
The Battalion
On April 21, Aggies all over the world
will remember friends and classmates
who have passed away in what many
people consider one of Texas A&M's
most beautiful and important traditions -
Muster.
This year is the 110th anniversary of
Muster, a ceremony that gives students,
former students and faculty a chance to
relive their college days while honoring
Aggies who have died during the previ
ous year.
Since the 1980s, Aggies have held an
average of 400 registered ceremonies each
year around the world, with more than
8,000 people attending last year's campus
Muster.
The tradition began in 1883 as a com
petitive track and field day, with students
and alumni getting together to talk about
old times and celebrate Texas' victory at
the Battle of San Jacinto.
On April 21, 1903, after the corps
bandmaster failed to give the signal for
students to go to class, the 300-member
student body seized the opportunity and
marched through Old Main, a former
campus administration building. They
continued to the home of then-university
president David F. Houston to demand
some official observance of the Battle that
won Texas its independence.
The University administration made
the students return to class, and they left
vowing that no future Aggie would ever
forget what they considered the greatest
day in Texas' history. The conflict result
ed in the date becoming an official cam
pus holiday.
Muster's meaning shifted and gained
world-wide attention during World War
II when 25 Aggies held a ceremony on
Corregidor Island in the Philippines. In
the midst of Japanese snipers, the men,
under the command of Gen. George
Moore, held a roll call to remember their
lost friends. The group knew they could
not resist attack much longer and "The
Rock," or the island, fell 15 days later.
The following year, the word "Muster"
was coined, and the focus of the event
changed from the "bull sessions" of the
See Muster/Page 3
Inside
Sports
•Baseball: A&M survives pitching
duels with Baylor, ends weekend
series with two wins, one loss
•Curl, Fedora provide offense just
when Aggies need it most
Page 7
Opinion
•Pro-Con: Should state-run education
be subject to increasing
privatization?
•Column: Future editor exhorts
students to be part of the Batt
Page 9