Volume 109 • Issue 122 • 12 pages
Texas A&M University
www.thebatt.com
Monday, March 31, 2003
One Spirit. One Vision
jProgress Report:
mm
College of Agriculture $140 million $35.6 million
Corps of Cadets $35 million $10.6 million
College of Engineering $210 million $89.5 million
College of Liberal Arts $35 million $16.5 million
I2tliMan Foundation $100 million $80.2 million
RUBEN DI-LUNA • THE BATTALION
Source: TEXAS A&M FOUNDATION
Nye: Campaign will reach goal
By Brad Bennett
THE BATTALION
Despite an economic slowdown, Texas
A&M Regent Erie Nye said Friday that the
One Spirit, One Vision fundraising campaign
will reach its $l billion goal.
“People give because they care,” Nye said.
“It is easier to raise money in boom times. But
I’ve found people don’t quit giving when the
economy is struggling.”
More than 700 donors were given the oppor
tunity to ask questions and air concerns during
a special Board of Regents meeting at The Zone
in Kyle Field Friday afternoon to kickoff the
public phase of One Spirit, One Vision.
A&M President Robert M. Gates said the
campaign, now in its third year, has raised $511
million in gifts and pledges as of March 2003.
Gates and Robert Harvey, Class of 1977,
and vice chair of the campaign, answered ques
tions from donors who wanted to know how
the money would benefit students.
“The first priority established by this cam
paign is to increase the number of faculty,”
Gates said.
Gates said A&M has fewer tenured professors
See Campaign on page 2
Di partmevt of Defense
feedom is the multi-
iberate the Iraqi peo-
is of mass destruction
iam Hussein.
for
ghdad
d 3rd Amiored Cavalry
nts of the 4th Infantry
on Thursday from Fort
; ships carrying thedivi-
all be there until about
owned an Army Apache
U.S. drone aircraft, but
o ffi c ial s con fi rmed only
of a reconnaissance
hey said footage of a
\pache shown on Iraqi
television was of an
ml was lost during fight-
day. After curtailing
because of to blinding
is and thunderstorms,
anes intensified their
hursday as the weather
They flew more than
missions across Iraq,
ial focus on Republican
rces ringing Baghdad,
aid.
omenici, R-N.M., what
would do once they
sld answered by allud-
a Basra, Iraq’s second-
tliere have “aid siege,
uprising by the city's
)th Basra and Baghdad
ons. “And they are not
egime,” Rumsfeld said,
tnd they are in the pres
ting us.” He said that
population is Shiite,
d to be fearful of them
»id. Rumsfeld said he
sts to shoot any Iraqi
to surrender and those
>. forces.
d by police
cts in the assassination
iment said.
ie gang that has been
stry said in a statement
e killed in an ensuing
atement said,
layed in the assassina-
: followed the Djindjic
OQS
RY
T/ON
irch 31
p.m.
11 1
er.tamu.edu
Veterans urge
troop support
By Rolando Garcia
THE BATTALION
Americans must present a
mited front in support of the
tonflict with Iraq because
inti-war demonstrations can
slowly erode soldiers’
morale, a Vietnam war veter-
mtold students and commu
nity members gathered for a
pro-war rally Sunday.
“There’s a time to protest,
hit when the shooting starts,
»e all need to support the
loops,” said Mike
Southerland, a Bryan business
man and Vietnam veteran.
About 50 people gathered
lithe Academic Plaza at a
ally organized by the Texas
A&M chapter of the Young
Conservatives of Texas to
show their support for
American forces in Iraq.
The right to demonstrate
igainst the war should not
ttcuse Americans from their
obligation to support forces
in the field, Southerland said.
“For 30 years, nobody ever
publicly thanked me for my
service,” Southerland said.
And there was always a
question in my mind as to
whether we did the right
thing.”
Vocal anti-war protests not
only degrade soldiers’ morale
on the frontlines, but feelings
of doubt can linger long after
the fighting has stopped,
Southerland said.
“It’s always in the back of
your mind, what are we
doing here?” Southerland
said. “It may not come to
fruition then, but it does
affect you.”
Richard Stadelmann, a
philosophy professor at
A&M. also addressed the
rally and defended the deci
sion to invade Iraq against
critics who claim it is an
unwarranted act of aggres
sion.
The war, Stadelmann said,
is the final phase of an effort
to disarm Saddam Hussein
that began with the Persian
Gulf war ceasefire agree
ment. If Iraq is allowed to
continue stockpiling weapons
of mass destruction, those
weapons will likely fall into
the hands of terrorists,
Stadelmann said.
See Rally on page 6
Big Event 2i®3
6,500 students
participated
Completed 700
jobs
Jobs included
painting houses
and cleaning
yards in the
Bryan-Coliege
Station area
Source: Big Event Committee T RAVIS SWENSON • THE BATTALION
6,500 students fill
Big Event kickoff
By Lauren Smith
THE BATTALION
For students in the
Sports for Kids organiza
tion, the volunteer service
job they completed as part
of Big Event was a perfect
fit for the mission of their
organization.
“Our mission in Sports
for Kids is to give under
privileged children the
opportunity to participate in
sports,” said Jenny Baker, an
executive director of Sports
for Kids. “Our job on
Saturday was to paint
Bryan’s Boys and Girls
Club, a facility that SPK
members visit every Friday
to play or read to the chil
dren there.”
Picking out the colors
that would cover the walls
of the facility was no easy
task, Baker said.
“We hand-picked the
colors because we wanted
those kids from often bro
ken homes to have a bright,
happy place to come to,”
she said. “Many of the chil
dren spend more time here
than they do at home,
which sometimes is a very
good thing.”
The children of the Boys
and Girls Club will provide
the finishing touches to the
SPK members’ five-hour
paint job by painting sten
ciled hand prints throughout
the room.
Although Saturday
brought cold winds, 6,500
students still huddled
together on O.R. Simpson
Drill field for the 8 a.m.
kickoff of the campus-wide
service project, Big Event.
“Through interacting
with the kids while we were
working and seeing their
faces as the play room
transformed, getting up at 7
and losing a Saturday defi
nitely did not seem impor
tant anymore,” Baker said.
See Event on page 2
Primping the pooch
RANDAL FORD • THE BATTALION
Dog shower Besty Keith performs final touches on her English
Springer Spaniel, Carson before the Springer Spaniel contest at
the Brazos Valley Kennel Club dog competition at the pavilion
off of Highway 6 and Tabor Road. The Brazos Valley Kennel club
competition was host to more than 50 breeds competing this
past Saturday and Sunday.
Iraqi Shiites flee, await Saddam’s fall
By Mark Fritz
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thousands of Iraqi Shiites who fled into
Iran to escape repression by Saddam Hussein
are poised to return home if the dictator is
dethroned, with some bringing extra baggage:
strong anti-American sentiment.
Paramilitary units of Iraqi expatriates are
already posted in their home country, and
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
warned last week that they will be considered
just another U.S. enemy if they enter the fray.
The Iran-based guerrillas, called the Badr
Corps, have openly deployed in the Kurdish
territories of northern Iraq and have been
crossing back and forth into southern Iraq
since 1980, when Iran and Iraq began an
eight-year war.
Abu Islam, spokesman of the Supreme
Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq,
denied that Iran-based forces have entered
Iraq since the current war began, but said
Badr guerrillas are based throughout that
country. Some are even officers in Iraq’s reg
ular army, he said Sunday.
Iranian government spokesman Abdollah
Ramezanzadeh was quoted by the official IRNA
news agency as saying, “Tehran does not allow
any military activities on its (Iraq) border in
favor or against any of the belligerent parties.”
The Badr Corps’ numbers swelled in
1991, when Saddam crushed a Shiite upris
ing in southern Iraq in the wake of the
Persian Gulf War. The group claims to have
10,000 fighters and has said for years that it
has spread guerrillas throughout Iraq in
anticipation of a revolution.
Unlike the two million Afghan refugees in
Iran, where life is vastly better than in their
bombed-out country, the roughly 200,000
Iraqi expatriates seem eager to return to their
homeland post-Saddam.
“The Iraqi refugees overwhelmingly say if
Saddam Hussein falls, they will go back
immediately,” said Bruno Jochum, head of the
Doctors Without Borders humanitarian mis
sion in Iraq. “On the one side, they will be
pretty happy to see the current regime fall but
they are absolutely against any American
administration.”
Apparently worried that the Shiite rulers of
Iran are seeking to extend their influence in
Iraq, where a majority of people are Shiites,
Rumsfeld warned Tehran on Friday to stay
out of the war.
He said any combatants entering Iraq not
under U.S. control “will be taken as a potential
threat to coalition forces. This includes the
Badr Corps, the military wing of the Supreme
Council on Islamic Revolution in Iraq.”
The Supreme Council — the biggest Iraqi
opposition group — is based in Tehran and
See Shiites on page 2
Iraq gives $34,000 to suicide bomber s family
By Hamza Hendawi
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq gave
$34,000 to the family of an Iraqi
army officer who killed four U.S.
soldiers in a suicide attack, and
the leader of the militant group
Islamic Jihad said Sunday its vol
unteers had gone to Baghdad for
similar bombing missions against
the “American invasion.”
Ail Jaafar al-Noamani, a non
commissioned officer with sever
al children, was posthumously
promoted to colonel and awarded
two medals for the attack in Najaf
that killed the unidentified
Americans, Iraqi state television
reported.
His family reportedly was
given a fortune by Iraqi stan
dards: 100 million dinars, the
equivalent of $34,000.
In the Israeli coastal town of
Netanya on Sunday, an Islamic
militant blew himself up in a
crowded pedestrian mall, wound
ing 30 bystanders in what Islamic
Jihad called “a gift to the heroic
Iraqi people.”
Ramadan Shallah, Islamic
Jihad’s leader in Damascus,
Syria, also said the group already
had “martyrdom seekers” in Iraq.
“This is fulfillment of the call
of sacred duty ... an opportunity
for Jihad and martyrdom is avail
able now for the Islamic nation,”
he said.
“We say to all sons of Jihad
and supporters, to our nation, our
people, wherever they are, that
whoever is able to march and
reach Iraq, Baghdad, Najaf and
blow himself up in this American
invasion. ... This is the climax of
Jihad and climax of martyrdom.”
Shallah urged “the entire
(Islamic) nation, including the
Jihad and resistance in Palestine,
if they were able to get there, to
fight side by side with the Iraqi
people against this butcher
Bush.”
Iraqi Vice President Taha
Yassin Ramadan indicated
Saturday’s attack in Najaf was
“just the beginning” and even
raised the specter of terrorism on
U.S. or British soil. “We will use
any means to kill our enemy in
See Bomber on page 6
KTR CAMPUS
Iraqi civilians survey the damage to a market in Baghdad, Iraq,
March 29. Iraqis said an air raid on a Baghdad market on
Friday evening killed dozens of civilians.