Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 2000)
I'hursday, Ocio University policiesoii ;ct,” said Corps Command /elsh, a senior finance m However, John said thai like one big fraternity.lib lilitary and hence the & ik, don’t tell” policy is ii nlike the armed forces he Corps Standard does noli aces cadets cannot be in >r example, he said militan I cannot be at an abortiot liform, but that does notap; John said, regardless, Ii r a degree from A&M will > perseverance. “1 know that there is a lent here,” he said. "Gn mi A&M means a lotto Being open in what tie loset Station” and gettii Corps shot down all off r plans and ultimately chai John had served fount. ; duty in the military andn. \&M on contract to conn ree before returning. ‘I basically gave it all up /as too difficult for met ’ he said. But being at A&M hashai [ of its own. It opened a lot of thingstl. i repressed for four years tary,” he said. “If theyartl 1 am a disgrace or e it. then they are saying is bad.” • ohn said gay cadets cam iselves to arms because tk' tin underground, but he be! if all gay cadets were to once their sexual orientatio is would be more acce| am not on a personal cni said. “But if I can helpjir >n understand what it’s lib /e done something for tlx mt of someone.” FRIDAY October 13, 2000 Volume 107 ~ Issue 36 10 pages Ii Vim t :*.-*:* * I llh'l M I The drawing board Aggies! )RGAME? I be serving the^Na^ n Saturday 14. MNIa building fort n. i://bgs.tamu.edu>| PROJECT to help? Bomb blasts hole in U.S. warship, killing six KEVIN BURNS/Tm Battalion Tiffany McCauley, a sophomore environmental design major, works on a construction diagram for ENDS 115. The class focuses on basic drawing techniques for architecture. WASHINGTON (AP) — In a sinis ter slip through Navy security, suicide bombers in a small boat tore a gaping hole in a U.S. warship Thursday at a re fueling stop in a Yemeni harbor on the Arabian Peninsula, U.S. officials say. The blast killed six members of the crew, injured 35 and left 11 missing. The crippled ship was tilting slightly in the harbor at Aden, Yemen, but the Navy said it was not in danger of sinking. No one has claimed responsibility, Defense Secretary William Cohen told a Pentagon news conference. President Clinton said the attack on the USS Cole, one of the world’s most advanced warships, appeared to be an act of terrorism, the worst against the U.S. military since the bombing of an Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996 that killed 19 troops. “We will find out who was respon sible and hold them accountable,” Clinton pledged. He dispatched to Yemen investigative teams from the FBI, the State Department and the Pentagon. Clinton also ordered a heightened state of alert for all U.S. mil itary installations around the world. After the attack, ambulances rushed to the port, and Americans working with Yemeni authorities cordoned off the area. The ship was listing but still afloat. Yemeni police sources said without elaboration that a number of people had been detained for questioning; it was not clear whether any were suspects. The State Department issued a world wide alert, saying it was extremely con cerned about the possibility of violence against U.S. citizens and interests. Americans were urged to maintain “a high level of vigilance.” In a parallel travel warning, Ameri cans were advised to defer all travel to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and those already there were told to stay at home or get to a safe location. Ameri cans were warned not to go to Yemen. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh talked with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, pledged his cooperation in the investigation and visited some of the injured who were hospitalized locally. He insisted in a CNN interview that his country did not harbor “terrorist el ements" and said, “1 don’t think it’s a terrorist attack.” The Cole is a $1 billion guided missile destroyer home-ported at Norfolk, Va. If had sailed through the Red Sea and was en route to the Persian Gulf where it was to perform maritime intercept oper ations in support of the U.N. em bargo against Iraq. The ship has a crew of about 350 people. Navy medical teams were en route to the scene Thursday to treat those injured in the 5:15 a.m. EDT explosion, Pentagon offi cials said. U.S. aircraft capable of evacuating the injured were also scheduled to By to Aden. The incident was all the more stun ning given that U.S. forces in the Mid dle East have been on a heightened state of alert in recent days and security plans for a port visit like the Cole's are drawn up in advance. The Cole had just arrived in the har bor and was scheduled to leave in about four hours, officials said, suggesting the attackers may have known the ship’s schedule and the procedures for a refu eling stop. Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, said he could not fault the Cole’s crew for not preventing the mid day attack that apparently was carried out by two men in a small harbor craft that was helping tie up the ship’s moor ing lines at a fueling facility in the mid dle of the Aden harbor. As a participant in normal harbor op erations, the small boat’s presence did not raise suspicions, Clark said. ETHIOPI U.S. Navy ship attacked SOMALIA Z Indian Ocean AP “I have no reason to think this was anything but a senseless act of terror ism,” Clark said. After helping the Cole moor, the small boat came alongside the warship and ap parently detonated a high-explosive bomb, killing the men on board in the process. Some reports said the two men in the boat stood at attention as the bomb exploded, although Clark said he could not verify such details based on early information. The explosion ripped a hole 20 feet high and 40 feet wide in the midsection of the ship, flooding the main engine compartment. Clark said the flooding was brought under control and the ship was not in danger of sinking. Clark displayed a Navy photograph of the damaged ship. The jagged edges of the hole in the hull protruded in ward, suggesting the explosive force came from outside the ship at roughly the water level. )6«8886(TUT0R) Three Israelis killed, Arafat’s house bombed Israelis retaliate after lynching of soldiers Israeli helicopters attacked Palestinian targets Thursday in retaliation for the killings of two Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian mob. Among the targets hit were Yasser Arafat’s residential compound, police stations and broadcasting centers. ^ Targets hit by Israeli missiles Part m l uc Oct 17 5pm-7pm ’art Ill id Oct 18 >m-9pni art III dOcf 18 m-12am GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — In a day of incendiary violence that, left Mideast peacemaking in ashes, Israeli helicopters rocketed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s compound Thursday in retaliation for the mutilation of three Israeli soldiers by a mob of enraged Palestinians. Late Thursday, Arafat spoke in a confer ence call with President Clinton and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Arafat’s office said. The day began with U.N. Secretary-Gen eral Kofi Annan and CIA chief George Tenet trying to broker a truce to end two weeks of daily fighting. But it degenerated swiftly, with both sides unleashing pent-up rage. The Palestinians inflicted the worst losses yet on Israeli troops, .while Israel’s combat he licopters staged unprecedented attacks on high-profile Palestinian targets and tanks rum bled to the outskirts of Palestinian cities. One Israeli rocket struck 150 feet from Arafat’s seaside residential headquarters, with the Palestinian leader inside at the time, his aides said. . “This is a declaration of war a crazy war,” said Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said Arafat “does not appear to be a partner for peace at this time.” Barak said he held Arafat indirectly re sponsible for the killing of the soldiers, and said Israel would hunt down those involved. He demanded that the United States publicly affix blame to Arafat for the collapse of the peace talks and the escalation of violence. Barak also renewed calls to the hawkish opposition party Likud to join an emergency coalition. Likud has rebuffed Barak in the past, saying it would join only if he aban- WEST f BANK FI ;• Ramallah Gaza V City O 4, Jerusalem EGYPT JORDAN Beit EJ (industrial Communications tower zona) Plnkhas Rd. Ramallah l Source: Compiled from AP wire reports met with Barak doned the peace talks. However, opposition leader Ariel Sharon — whose visit to a contested Jerusalem shrine two weeks ago triggered the violence Thursday. Thursday’s turmoil appeared to extinguish hopes that Israel and the Palestinians could soon negotiate a truce and bring an end to 15 days of bloodshed that have left at least 95 people dead, the vast majority Palestinians. The attack on Arafat’s compound and oth er key Palestinian targets was the first major Israeli assault on important Palestinian sites since Arafat returned to the region in 1994 and the two sides launched negotiations aimed at a comprehensive settlement. A smiling, defiant Arafat was cheered by Palestinian police headquarters Palestinian police station where soldiers were killed \\ f/ 57 Wm. J. castello/AP hundreds of Palestinians as he toured the Gaza sites hit by rockets, including a power station, a government building and a police station. “Our people don’t care and don’t hesitate to continue their march to Jerusalem, their capital of the independent Palestinian state,” he said. Arafat was also shown on television visit ing wounded in hospitals. While Israelis and Palestinians traded sharp words, Annan made a seemingly futile plea for calm. See Mideast on Page 2. Investigators react to ship bombing, Dowdropsby300 available the rest of th* 'day after 5pm. Mil. >ehind KFC next to Uc* 1 * IGo.com NEW YORK (AP) — The Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 300 points during early trading Thursday as skittish investors reacted to an earn ings warning from Home Depot and an apparent ter rorist attack on a U.S. mili tary ship in Yemen. In the first hour of trad ing, the'Dow Jones industri al average was down 236.29 to 10,178.50 after falling more than 310 points at one point. Broader markets fell as well. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was off 18.40 to 1,346.19. After opening up 75 points, the Nasdaq com posite was down 12.52 to 3,155.97. That was below its low close for the year of 3,164.55, set on May 23. In the Middle East, a U.S. Navy ship in port in Yemen was struck in an apparent ter rorist act. At least four Amer icans were killed. And Israeli combat helicopters rocketed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s residential com pound in the Gaza Strip as well as a West Bank town in retaliation for the brutal killing of two Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian mob. Meetings with railroad authorities focus on safety By Marium Mohiuddin The Battalion A near accident on the West Campus railroad tracks Wednesday may have accelerated the local track relocation debate decision. On Wednesday morning, a landscape maintenance repair worker witnessed a male Texas A&M student crawl be tween train cars stopped on the West Campus railroad tracks. When he got to the other side safely, he began to pull his bike through. However, the train lurched forward and began to move, and the bike’s front tire was snapped off, said Uni versity Police Department officials. “This is definitive proof that something could happen,” said Bob Wiatt, director of UPD. “Can you imagine if that was flesh, blood and bones instead of just metal? 1 am begging students to use common sense and not to do dangerous, fool-hardy things.” In an effort to prevent students from climbing over and under stopped trains, the vice president of administration’s office met with Union Pacific and the Federal Railroad Au thority in September to discuss the possibility of converting the stretch of railrqad through A&M into a no-stop zone, said Mary Miller, associate vice president of administration. “We have not received an answer from [Union Pacific] COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY POLICE DEPARTMENT A student lost his bicycle when a stopped train began top move while he was walking in between two train cars. yet, and we are not sure when the next meeting will be,” Miller said. “But the events that happened yesterday have See Railroad on Page 3. Students ask Bowen, VPs questions on TV forum Off-campus bonfire among many topics By Courtney Stelzel The Battalion Minority enrollment, Corps mem bership and student support of an off- campus bonfire were concerns of the students, faculty and alumni who called Texas A&M President Dr. Ray M. Bowen and other administrators during a televised question-and-answer session Thursday night. Bowen was accompanied by Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. J. Malon Southerland, Vice President for Finance Dr. Bill Krumm, Vice Presi dent and Provost Dr. Ronald Douglas and Vice President for Research Dr. Richard Ewing. Callers had the opportunity to call in and ask questions of the administrators. Bowen said that the number of His- . panic students enrolled this year has increased, but there is still a lot of work to be done. “Our campus needs to better reflect the population of the state,” he said. He assured the viewers that a dedicated staff was working on attaining this goal. Bowen said that, over the next few weeks, a study concerning minority students who chose not to go to A&M will be released. “We are interested to see why some students who were accepted for the 1999-2000 school year at Texas A&M chose not to come here. We have al ready learned so much from their an swers. It will only help to better our university,” he said. Southerland commented on the Corps enrollment when asked if it had decreased, increased or stayed steady. “I believe the number of enrolled cadets is around 2,000, but we hope to increase this number to 2,600, the max imum number of housing available to the Corps in that area,” he said. Southerland See Bowen on Page 3.
