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Sports: New Jersey hopes for second title • Page 3 Opinion: Read him his rights • Page 5
THE BATTALfON
1 109 Years Serving Texas A&M University
[Volume 109 • Issue 150 • 6 pages flHHHHHHHHK ;vww ' thebatt ’ colT1 IflMHHNH Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Area trains for
possible attacks
By Karen Yancey
THE BATTALION
The cities of College Station
and Bryan, Brazos County and
Texas A&M held a mock sce
nario Tuesday as part of their
first emergency response drill
involving weapons of mass
destruction.
As part of the drill, organiz
ers held a press conference
dealing with a suspected case
ofsmallpox at the Hilton Hotel
in College Station.
Preparations for the mock
scenario included the closing of
Easterwood Airport and A&M
due to the discovery of two
bombs at Baylor University, all
done to prepare the city in case a
similar scenario happens. The
two-and-a-half day exercise is
being run by the Texas
Engineering Extension Service
at A&M and is funded by the
Texas Department of Public
Safety-Division of Emergency
Management.
“The city holds these emer
gency exercises once or twice a
year, but this one is different
because it is concerning
weapons of mass destruction,”
said Marilyn Martell, director of
public information forTEEX.
Patti Jett, interim public
information manager for the
City of College Station, said the
scenario is good practice.
“This particular incident is
set up to really overload us,” she
said. “It puts us all to the test to
see how we are doing so when a
real incidenf occurs, we have the
basic skills.”
This drill is only a functional
exercise that involves manage
ment officials in Bryan-College
Station and the University. In a
full-scale exercise, ambulances
and fire trucks would be sent out
on the streets.
Bart Humphries, public
information officer for the
College Station Fire
Department, said preparation for
the exercise started several
weeks ago. Training classes for
city management officials were
conducted to help them partici
pate in the exercise.
Jett said the drill uses its own
time ciock and the discoveries
were made early in the morning.
“In game time, the press
conference was only two hours
after the event,” she said.
The press conference consist
ed of Jett and Humphries stand
ing at a podium at College
See Drill on page 2
Mock weapons of mass
destruction drill
Two and a half days long
> Run by TEEX
£> Funded by the Texas Department of
Public Safety
P> Involves the cities of College Station
and Bryan, Texas A&M and
Brazos County
RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
SOURCE: TEXAS ENGINEERING EXTENSION SERVICES
Iraqis combat crime against women
By Azedeh Moaveni
LOS ANGELES TIMES
CAROLYN COLE • LOS ANCLELES TIMES
College students Shireen Khalil, left, and her friend Mahi, both 21, wait behind a temporary bar
rier to be picked up by the+r fathers. ‘‘I can't go out-alone anymore, only with my father,” Khalil
said. Tm scared of kidnappings.”
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Every school day
morning five fathers stand guard outside a
girls’ high school in west Baghdad, making
sure their daughters are not kidnapped and
raped.
From the opening to the closing tinkles
of the school bell, they peer suspiciously
into the chaotic street when cars slow down
or strangers loiter.
At noon on this day, Mohammed Abdel-
Hassan pries his two daughters away from
a circle of chatting girls in navy-blue uni
forms and takes them home. The next day,
five different fathers will have watch duty
under the scorching sun, in shifts organized
by a newly formed committee of men ded
icated to keeping their daughters both safe
and in school.
The insecurity that reigns in Iraq is the
defining reality of postwar life. But the
lawlessness is felt disproportionately by
young women and girls who have yet to
complete their education.
In one of the most secular capitals in the
Arab world, where women were until
recently a visible and integrated part of
public life, females have all but disap
peared. Men are the ones doing the shop
ping, turning up for what jobs remain and
helping plan the future of Iraq with the
U.S. reconstruction authority.
“There’s so little security, and they are
vulnerable as girls,” said Abdel-Hassan.
“We hear rumors constantly of kidnappings
and rape.”
In fact, the recorded numbers are small,
but in a city with few police on the street
and where law and order are at best tenu
ous, even talk of such crimes is enough to
stir worry.
The fear of rape in the city is now so
widespread that families are rearranging
their daily activities around providing
security for their daughters. Dedicated
fathers such as Abdel-Hassan take person
al steps to ensure their safety at school, but
many who are unable or disinclined to take
on an additional burden are simply opting
to keep their daughters at home.
“We decided to give up on this school
year entirely,” said a man who hires out his
services as a driver. He said his daughter’s
schooling is important to him but that his
long hours don’t allow him to drive her
around himself. “Being safe is more impor
tant than being a year behind.”
In Iraqi society, still shaped by tribal
norms that define a family’s honor by its
women's reputations, there is no greater
shame than rape. Rapes are only rarely
reported, though, because news of a sexual
assault would sully a family’s name and
doom the victim to either marrying her
assailant or a stigmatized life of
spinsterhood.
Even the word “rape” is difficult fpr
Iraqis to utter; they generally use kidnap
ping as a euphemism.
With the chaotic conditions in the
capital, it’s impossible to know the number
See Iraqis on page 2
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University dismantles Grove hangout
By Natalie Younts
THE BATTALION
A once well-known social
gathering place has been demol
ished due to unsafe conditions.
Only the concession stand
and the bleachers remain from
The Grove, located west of
Simpson Drill Field and south of
Albritton Bell Tower, once home
lo Thursday night yell practices
and Ring Dance.
The stage, restrooms and metal
building were all torn down, said
Jim Reynolds, Memorial Student
Center director.
He said he had planned on
improving The Grove with
upgrades and renovations, but
that they never evolved. The
existing band shell had to be torn
down, he said.
Les G. Swick, the Physical
Plant’s associate director for
facilities, said the stage and rest
rooms were in such poor condi
tion that it was a good decision
to take them down.
“There were tremendous
maintenance problems with
those restrooms,” Swick said.
“They failed to satisfy current
code requirements, and the
stage was becoming equally
dangerous.”
According to The Grove Web
site, the bathrooms and stage
failed to comply with the
American’s with Disabilities Act.
Portable buildings at The
Grove currently house the
Department of Student Life’s
Conflict Resolution Services,
and Adult, Graduate and Off-
Campus Student Services. The
Department of Residence Life is
also in a portable building. The
departments are currently in
trailers, waiting until the planned
residence life and student servic
es building, located by Haas
Hall, is completed.
Former students who spent
numerous nights at The Grove
recall that movies shown at The
Grove were once a major event.
Betty Cook of Hurst, Texas,
said her father was an agricultural
economics professor from 1957,
when Cook was in fourth grade,
until the late 1970s, so she was
always on the A&M campus.
“It was packed the night they
showed the movie about the
See Grove on page 2
RUBEN DELUNA & TERESA WEAVER • THE BATTALION
SOURCE: MEMORIAL STUDENT CENTER DIRECTOR'S OFFICE
Israel attacks militants,
peace promises dwindle
By Ibrahim Barzak
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israel
sent helicopters to kill a senior Hamas
political leader in the crowded streets of
Gaza on Tuesday but failed, leaving two
other Palestinians dead and 27 wounded.
Hie missile attack threatened to rekindle
3 cycle of violence and wreck a new
U.S.-backed peace effort.
The strike against Abdel Aziz Rantisi
drew a reproach from President Bush,
% said he was “deeply troubled” by
•be violence, and vows of vengeance
from the Islamic militant group, which
threatened new suicide bombings and
attacks on Israeli political leaders.
Hours after the attack on Rantisi,
five homemade rockets fired from Gaza
landed in Israel, the Israeli army said.
Israeli helicopters and tanks responded
by firing on an area in northern Gaza,
hilling three Palestinians, including a
lb-year-old girl.
Two other Palestinians were killed
Tuesday by Israeli soldiers in
southern Gaza.
Palestinian officials angrily accused
Israel of sabotaging their attempts to per
suade Hamas and other militant groups
to stop attacking Israelis. Palestinian
Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas called
the strike a “terrorist attack.” Still,
Egyptian mediators were going ahead
with an attempt to secure a Hamas cease
fire.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
condemned the strike, saying it compli
cated efforts by Abbas to halt violence.
Annan’s spokesman Fred Eckhard
said the secretary-general will go to
Washington on Wednesday for talks on
the peace blueprint with Secretary of
State Colin Powell and national security
adviser Condoleezza Rice. The talks will
also cover Iraq, Eckhard said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
made clear Israel would not restrain its
troops from retaliating against militants,
despite U.S. efforts to push forward the
peace plan, inaugurated by Bush, Sharon
See Israel on page 2
Three Palestinians
killed, 30 wounded
Israeli tanks and helicopters fired
toward a residential
neighborhood in the northern
Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
Beit Hanoun
Jabaliya #
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Gaza City* Sderot
Gaza ISRAEL
Strip
leiXTj SYR ' A
ISRAEL
1/Vest
Bank
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Jerusalem
0 25 mi
0 25 km
SOURCES: Associated Press; ESRI AP
Old Ags make
By C.E. Walters
THE BATTALION
Separated by distance, attitudes and
several generation gaps, current and fonner
students are finding a way to come togeth
er and share the Aggie spirit.
Aggie Hostel, a program that allows
former students to return to Texas A&M,
was conceived as the basis for a Master’s
degree thesis in 1988, said Rosella Garcia,
class programs coordinator in the former
student programs department of the
Association of Fonner Students.
The annual program was held June 2 to
June 6, with 37 attendees and 21 hosts.
Sixteen years after its conception, the
program is getting positive feedback from
organizers and attendees.
“(It’s) an incredible event to see these
two generations exist as one,” Garcia said.
The program allows Aggies ages 60 and
older to return to A&M for a week and
attend classes and lectures that students
attend, she said.
The attendees, called Hostlers, also
attended evening events such as banquets
and Ring Dance. They stayed in the
Southside modular residence halls
Eppright and Wells.
new memories
The program costs $600 for a single
person or $1,100 for a double. The cost
pays for everything, including food and
lodging.
This is the first year that the program
age limit was lowered from 65 to 60.
Former students are informed of the pro
gram through flyers and class newsletters.
Trey Tarwater, a junior speech com
munications major, spent the week with
two other students escorting a group of
five around campus.
Tarwater, a first-time host, said he
spent every morning waking up early
trying to beat his Hostlers to breakfast,
but said he could not.
Tarwater said he got involved the pro
gram because of advice from a member of
the Class of 1986.
The program required a great deal of his
time throughout the week, but he does not
regret it, he said.
“(The Hostel was) one of the best expe
riences I’ve ever had at A&M,” he said.
Jennie Walsh, who attended the pro
gram with her husband Don, received a
Master’s degree in sociology from A&M in
1966 and a Ph.D. in education in 1971.
See Ags on page 2