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Acgielife: Witches and witchcraft • Page 3
Opinion: It's a jungle out there • Page 11
THF RATTAT TO
J. xUD iJJv 1
Volume 110 • Issue 42 • 12 pages
A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893
www.thebattalion.net
Monday, October 27, 2003
RANDAL FORD • THE BATTALION
Former President George Bush, center hosts a leadership forum in Rudder Auditorium
Friday. Recently retired Army General Tommy Franks (right) and New York Times foreign
correspondent John Burns (left) joined Bush to discuss experiences in Iraq.
Franks defends Iraqi war
By Sarah Szuminski
THE BATTALION
Recently retired Army General
Tommy Franks said Americans should
be proud of the United States’ efforts to
end Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq
when he spoke to a packed Rudder
Auditorium at Texas A&M Friday.
Franks, who commanded U.S.
troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, joined
New York Times foreign correspondent
and Pulitzer Prize winner John Burns
and former President George Bush to
discuss experiences in Iraq as part of a
leadership forum.
The former Midland resident, who
retired two months ago, spoke to
approximately 2,500 attendees about the
U.S.-led campaigns in Afghanistan and
Iraq and the ongoing war on terrorism.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Franks said,
Americans realized their vulnerability.
“Then all of a sudden, I remember
how I felt on the 12th,” Franks said.
“(Our country has) the attitude of a
superpower that refuses to cave in to
terrorists.”
Franks said citizens of Afghanistan
have been given the chance to become
a stable society as a result of U.S.
intervention.
“All of us have a right to be proud of
the young men and women in uniform
and our country who have given liberty
to Afghanistan,” he said.
The decision to declare war, Franks
said, was a long process of finding the
right approach and plan.
“Those who believe that we are
inclined in this country and this govern
ment to flap our arms and make snap
judgments to carry our country into war
... are terribly wrong,” he said.
Burns, who was previously sta
tioned in Iraq, related his knowledge
of the country.
“Unless you’ve been there — unless
you’ve experienced it — it would be
hard to understand how brutally repres
sive that regime is,” Burns said. “This is
a people utterly traumatized.”
What happened on April 9 when
See Franks on page 2
Student information
released via e-mail
By Sarah Walch
THE BATTALION
A database of all 1,300 Texas
A&M biology major students’
personal information, including
their Social Security numbers,
was accidentally attached to an
Oct. 22 e-mail that was sent to
each of the 1,300 majors.
An adviser in the
Undergraduate Advising Office
for the biology department mis
takenly attached the database —
which included students’ names,
grade point ratios, ethnicities, e-
mail addresses and other person
al information — instead of the
departmental monthly newslet
ter to the e-mail intended for all
biology majors.
Students expressed concern,
surprise and anger over the
security breach.
Rene Farrell, a freshman biol
ogy major, said she was unaware
that the attachment contained her
personal information.
“If (they) sent oliI our Social
Security number and our GPR,
that’s bad. That really makes me
mad. They need to be more care
ful,” she said. “That defeats the
whole purpose of having codes,
if you’re just going to send it out
to everybody.”
Senior biology major Sabrina
Caballero said she was also
unaware that the attachment
included the private information
and hoped no one would use the
information inappropriately.
“I’m going to delete the e-
mail right now,” she said.
Christopher Farmer, a senior
biology major, said the release
of the document was a serious
security breach.
“They won’t let profs post
grades using our Social Security
number, and now they send it out
in an open document,” he said.
Approximately 45 minutes
after the first e-mail had been
sent, another e-mail was sent by
the department asking students
to delete the previous message.
Vincent Cassone, head of
the biology department, said
the advising office was testing
the new e-mail system that
reaches all the students in an
effort to improve department
wide communications when the
error occurred.
After the mistake was real
ized, a letter was sent to students
informing them of the problem,
he said. Later, Cassone contact
ed Computing and Information
Services and asked it to delete
the message.
“As soon as I found out about
(the e-mail) I called CIS, and they
told me they were able to intercept
some but not all of them,” he said.
See E-mail on page 2
Surf’s up
RANDAL FORD • THE BATTALION
Junior environmental studies major Jeremy Edge and freshman are two of the six founders of the TAMU Surf Club, and were
communications major Matt Foucheaux paddle through meeting the rest of the founders at Rudder Fountain for a pro-
Rudder Fountain Friday afternoon on their surf boards. They motions picture.
Wildfires merge in southern California
By Chelsea J. Carter
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Wildfires
that have burned for days merged into walls
of flame stretching across miles in parts of
Southern California on Sunday, leaving 14
people dead, burning 650 homes and frus
trating overmatched firefighters, who worked
relentlessly against fierce winds.
Major fires had burned 264,000 acres by
Sunday night.
The state’s largest fire, in eastern San
Diego County, caused at least 1 1 deaths,
including two who died inside their car as
they apparently tried to escape the flames,
San Diego Sheriff Bill Kolender said.
One person was found dead in a trailer.
one in a motor home and four in vehicles,
county sheriff’s spokeswoman Susan Knauss
said. Three were killed while trying to
escape on foot and two were dead on arrival
at local hospitals.
“We were literally running through fire,”
said Lisza Pontes, 43, who escaped the fire
with her family after the roar of flames woke
them at 3:45 a.m. As they drove off, they saw
a neighbor’s mobile home explode.
“I was grabbing wet towels. Fire was at
our feet,” Pontes said. “It was blazing over
our heads and burning everywhere.”
The 100,000-acre fire started Saturday
near the mountain town of Julian when a lost
hunter set off a signal fire, authorities said.
The hunter was detained and may face
charges.
Another fire near San Diego that started
Sunday killed one man and destroyed 36
homes while burning through about 3,000
acres, Lora Lowes of the California
Department of Forestry said. It also prompt
ed evacuations in northeastern Escondido.
In a San Diego neighborhood on the west
ern flank of the fire, at least 150 homes were
either destroyed or damaged, San Diego
police said.
Fire also forced the evacuation of a
Federal Aviation Administration control cen
ter in San Diego, disrupting air travel across
the nation. Some airlines canceled flights
into the region.
The flames drew much of their strength
See Wildfires on page 2
Wildfires rage in Southern California
Fierce Santa Ana winds propelled flames across the southern region
of California causing fires to burn out of control. Towns are being
evacuated and thousands of homes are threatened by fires.
Burning acreage
O Simi Valley — 47,000 acres
and damaged 14 homes
Crestline — Almost 50,000
people evacuated
© Bernardino - 350 homes
have burned in two days in
suburbs
©
©
Claremont — 50 homes
burned near the canyon as
people evacuated
/g\ Ramona — Seven homes
have been destroyed. Two
people were found dead in a car
believed to have been trying to
escape San Diego fire.
CALIFORNIA
Pacific
Ocean
0 25 mi
0 25 km
SOURCE: Associated Press
AP
A&M grad student killed
A Texas A&M graduate student
was killed Saturday when the car he
was in collided with a Chevrolet
Camaro attempting to dodge a
Chevrolet Blazer leaving a driveway
between Turkey Creek and F&B roads
on Harvey Mitchell Parkway South.
28-year-old Cheng-Hsien Chiang,
a graduate civil engineering student,
died during surgery at the Scott and
White hospital in Temple. Chiang was
travelling in a Mercury with four other
Aggies when the accident occurred.
The Camaro was driven by Edward
Franklin Sullivan IV, a 16-year-old
junior at St. Jospeh Catholic School
who was also killed in the wreck, the
Bryan-College Station Eagle reported.
The driver’s side of Sullivan’s auto
mobile was hit by the Mercury as he
attempted to avoid the Blazer.
The graduate students were sent to
College Station Medical Center and
two were airlifted to Scott & White
hospital in Temple. College Station
police said Chiang died during surgery
while the other student remained in
critical condition. Another student, sent
to St. Joseph Regional Health Center in
Bryan, was listed in critical condition.
The other two students, who
remained at College Station Medical
Center, were in serious condition.
College Station Police Department
officials say they have begun an investi
gation of the accident.’ Four of the five
were international students.
Bombing kills
U.S. colonel
A barrage of rockets Hr
struck the Al
Rasheed Hotel in v. Baght
Baghdad killing an
American colonel and
wounding 15. Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was
staying in the hotel where U.S.
officials live. He escaped unhurt.
SOURCE: Associated Press
Insurgent rockets drive Americans
from main hotel in Baghdad
By Charles J. Hanley
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A “science project”
of a rocket launcher forced the U.S. occupa
tion authority to retreat from its main hotel
Sunday, after a barrage by the Iraqi resist
ance that killed an American colonel,
wounded 18 other people and sent scores of
U.S. officials scurrying for safety, including
the visiting deputy defense secretary.
Paul Wolfowitz, the shaken-looking but
unhurt Pentagon deputy, said the strike
against the Al Rasheed Hotel, from nearly
point-blank range, “will not deter us from
completing our mission” in Iraq.
But the bold blow at the heart of the U.S.
presence here clearly rattled U.S. confidence
that it is defeating Iraq’s shadowy insurgents.
“We’ll have to get the security situation under
control,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told
NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said the Bush
administration knew postwar security would
be a challenge, but “we didn’t expect it would
be quite this intense this long.”
The assault was likely planned over at
least the past two months, a top U.S. com
mander said, as the insurgents put together
See Rockets on page 2