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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 16, 2002)
Sports: A&M wins Invitational tourney • Page 5 Volume 109 • Issue 12 • 12 pages Ni 1 HE BATii novi to recon Donald dcsaju ,n a repon ' K*r issue of theJ uri:er>: Spine, ’ 1 s lc * u fn.* did ur the summer. . Reeve can idlfe 1 .* can feel aho. KHrmaJ scnsatHjo ^p^'HDAD. Irat| (AP) — U.S. and aial half o» Briiish warplanes bombed Iraqi instal- laions in the southern no-fly zone Sunday, an Iraqi military spokesman tol< Iraq's official news agency. ■The agency report did not sa\ if the ^■ly morning raid in Dhi Qar province, ^■uit 210 miles south of Baghdad. ^Hsed any damage or casualties. ■ I he I S military confirmed the ^Bick. ■ A statement released by U.S. Opinion: The last days of college radio • Page 11 BATTALION www.thebatt.com Monday, September 16, 2002 .S. planes attack Iraqi sites in no-fly zone - '** pinpricks.Th him know, hi ft his ucighi s ^ heekhair up t • w ithout gctimg- ■ vc ater, fic car ions vc ah hu ; - ovvover, he uii Central Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida said coalition aircraft responded to Iraqi ground fire by launching precision- guided weapons to strike an air defense communications facility. The Iraqi spokesman told the offi cial agency ITS. and British war planes bombed “civil and service installations.” “Our heroic missiles and anti-air craft units fired at the aircraft, forcing them to flee back to Kuwaiti territo ries,” the spokesman said without pro viding further details. Sunday’s raids brought to 38 the number of strikes reported this year by the U.S. and British coalition formed to patrol northern and southern Iraqi zones after the 1991 Gulf War. The last attack was Sept. 9. The latest strikes also come three days after President Bush told the U.N. General Assembly that Baghdad must grant access to U.N. weapons inspectors or face con frontation. Bush accuses Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of stock piling weapons of mass destruction and sponsoring terrorists, and says he must be toppled. Arab leaders oppose a U.S. attack against Iraq, but want Baghdad to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions concerning weapons inspections and disarmament to avert any conflict with the United States. Attacks and counterattacks in the no-fly zones have been ongoing for several years. The numbers ebb and flow, and the Pentagon says there is no particular increase now. Iraq considers the patrols a violation of its sovereignty and frequently shoots at the planes with anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles. In response, coalition pilots try to bomb Iraqi air defense systems. of the pool, k' . arms or viai Id up. ■ told McDot lie can breath: relieved h» r t,u lure, and jjj*, m .Kh muftar i know 1 m and that on » ive a \urpnjti aid. Rir ifv4aK» ssuhi in the p:t pu'h off froc? resistance 'trone as it ig satic® k- >nanL "It mai.* • if somcont : hand, and jna d. "You mik. mugful lames Hy. doctor* is .*nts that nwSE urs m ihefe ith no Impede o \ cars, uth is. weAt .•v in O’Conm d injury ns autding RAr ’Given thissr ur t*v patiar me limil ’ Tough men Saudi warns Iraq to move quickly Jim Sluder (left), a junior international studies major, slugs it out with Jay Warren (right), a junior political science major, at the Toughman Contest held Friday night at Reed JP BEATO III • THE BATTALION Arena. After three one-minute rounds, Sluder won the bout with a unanimous decision and moved on to the next round of the contest. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Saudi for eign minister said Sunday the kingdom would be “obliged to follow through” if the United States needed bases in the king dom to attack Iraq under U.N. authority. The comments to CNN by Prince Saud al-Faisal would mark a significant shift in Saudi policy. In an interview last month with The Associated Press, Saud declared that U.S. facilities in the desert kingdom would be off limits for an attack on Iraq. When asked by CNN specifi cally if Saudi bases would be available to Washington, Saud said: “Everybody is obliged to follow through.” Saud said, however, that he remained opposed in principle to the use of military force against Saddam Hussein or a unilateral American attack. The remote Prince Sultan Air Base south of Riyadh hosts most of the 5,000 U.S. troops based in Saudi Arabia. Saud's apparent policy shift came as world opinion shifted toward taking some collective action to contain Iraq, accused by the United States of stockpil ing weapons of mass destruc tion, harboring terrorists and defying the United Nations. Last week. Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher of Egypt, among the most influential Arab states, said his government would sup port a U.S. strike on Iraq if it were under U.N. auspices. Saudi Arabia has joined Iraq’s other Arab neighbors in cautioning the United States not to attack, saying it would only further destabilize a region made volatile by Israeli- Palestinian fighting. Also Sunday, Saud urged Iraq to quickly allow the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to head off a Security Council res olution that could open the way for military attacks. “Timing is important, and allowing inspectors back before a Security Council reso lution to that effect would be in Iraq's favor,” he told the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat. “We are afraid that (a refusal) would harm the Iraqi people and increase their burden. We are worried about Iraq’s unity, sta bility and independence,” al- Faisal said. In New York Saturday, envoys from Arab League issued a similar plea during the General Assembly, saying Iraq should heed international calls to allow inspectors back and avert a con frontation with the United States that could further destabilize the See Saudi on page 2 Officials say Vision 2020 progressing as planned By Lauren Bauml THE BATTALION I Administrators say Texas A&M has taken the first steps toward achieving Vision 2020. I Vision 2020. announced in 1997 under former University President Dr. Ray M. Bowen, is the comprehensive plan to get A&M ranked among the top ten public uni versities in the nation. I With construction, increased diversity and programming, A&M administrators say the school is moving toward its goals for the year 2020. I The 2020 plan includes elevating faculty teaching, research and scholarship, and attracting professors whose main passion is that of teaching, rather than researching. A&M has room for improvement when it comes to faculty teaching, said freshman Jonathan McAfeer, a computer engineering major who said his first two weeks of class es at A&M have been disappointing. “Professors need to be more friendly and approachable,” McAfeer said. “They come, lecture, and leave, and do not encourage stu dents to walk up and ask questions.” Dr. David Prior, interim provost and executive vice president. said the University’s departments are working slow ly toward increasing faculty standards and fulfilling another 2020 goal that has become a buzzword on campus: diversity. “Each individual college is showing progress, but it is not consistent,” Prior said. “Diversification includes both the faculty and student body, but diversifying this cam pus cannot happen in a matter of minutes.” Diversity is what the Vision 2020 report says is a need for the population at A&M to be representative of the population of Texas. According to the 2000 Census, the state is 32 percent Hispanic and I 1.5 percent black. At A&M’s main campus this spring, the most recent full-term semester for which figures are available, Hispanics made up only 8 percent of the student body and See Vision on page 2 VIS1QN^I2Q2Q THE ADMINISTRATION’S MAIN FOCUS Imperative One: Imperative Two: Imperative Three: Imperative Six: Imperative Seven: Elevate faculty Strengthen graduate programs Enhance the undergraduate academic experience Diversify and globalize the A&M community Attain resource parity with the best public universities RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION Voter registration drive [Calls tracked from U.S. to hopes to increase turnout overseas al-Qaida locations By Sarah Darr THE BATTALION A&M students are aligning themselves with a national movement to get voters registered and out ai the polls this November with the hope of having a record turnout in a non-presidential election. Texas A&M graduate student Kelly Norton is bringing the promise of the non-partisan, non profit organization Freedom’s Answer to campus next week in the form of a voter registration drive. Voter When: Where: Goal: September 23 - 27 Rodder Fountain Get students registered for Noirember elections RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION The drive targets the campus’ 18- to 24-year-old demographic, an age group typically under repre sented at the polls, Norton said. An information table will be set up by the Rudder Fountain each day from Sept. 23 to 27, with students handing out information about the candidates running for the Nov. 5 state and local elections. “We will show the world that the Sept. I 1 attacks only strengthened our nation’s commit ment to stand together for freedom,” Norton said. The Bush School’s Student Government Association is providing assistance at the infor mation table, a joint effort with the Public Service Association at the Bush School, said Richard Rolison, graduate student and executive chairman of the Student Government Association. Rolison said that the country’s younger genera tion didn’t have anything to solidify students’ right to vote before the attacks on the country last year. “Sept. 1 1 showed our generation the price of freedom,” Rolison said. See Vote on page 2 WASHINGTON (AP) — Government agents have recently uncovered numerous calls from dif- ficult-to-track prepaid cell phones, Internet-based phone service, prepaid phone cards and public pay phones in the United States to known al-Qaida locations overseas, federal officials said. The calls are one piece of a growing body of evidence pointing to the presence of suspected members of terrorist sleeper cells operating on U.S. soil, and a growing sophistication on their part to keep their communications secret, the officials said. The officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the effort to follow the phone call trail has involved numerous federal agencies and is the result of improved post-Sept. 1 I coordina tion between the traditional law enforcement of the FBI and the intelligence gathering of the National Security Agency, America’s premier overseas electronic intercept agency. “Things have really improved, and that gives us the ability to better track terrorists both in the United States and abroad, and prevent things before they happen,” one senior law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The officials said the process works like this: U.S. intelligence learns of a communication to known al-Qaida locations overseas and then alerts the FBI and other law enforcement agen cies, who try to track down the source and origin of the U.S. callers. Authorities said the calls point to the clear pres ence of one or more sleeper cells in the United States and attempts by al-Qaida sympathizers in America to make their calls difficult to track, using tactics invented by U.S. criminals in the 1990s. With Friday’s arrest of five American men of Yemeni descent in a Buffalo, N.Y. suburb. Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson said that U.S. law enforcement “has identified, inves tigated and disrupted an al-Qaida-trained terrorist cell on American soil.” In other recent steps to disrupt suspected domes tic terrorist activities, the indictment of several men in Detroit cited the possible presence in the Midwest of a “combat squad” of terrorists. Also, the government in the past few weeks charged a man with trying to help al-Qaida set up a terrorist See al-Qaida on page 2 i ■ i b i 1 i