 |
Around the Nation
|
|
|
Around the Nation
|
Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf called on the Security Council to ask the United States to refrain from any threats or action against Iraq.
In a letter dated Nov. 30 and delivered to the council yesterday, al-Sahhaf said the United States, when it recently threatened airstrikes, had aimed "to kill civilians and destroy Iraq's industrial, defense and security infrastructure in order to destabilize the country internally."
This would permit Washington "to put into effect its plan to overthrow the government of Iraq," he said.
Iraq, under American and British threat, agreed Nov. 14 to resume cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors charged with dismantling Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction.
While agreeing the following day to give Iraq one last chance, President Clinton left no doubt the United States would attack if Iraq didn't fully cooperate - and he urged the overthrow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Iraq's U.N. Ambassador, Nizar Hamdoon said yesterday he hadn't received a response to al-Sahhaf's request for a council meeting to discuss Iraq's charges.
Meanwhile, a U.N. official said Secretary-General Kofi Annan's deputy chief of staff, Rolf Knutsson, will visit Iraq from Dec. 9-14 for a look at the U.N. operation there and talks with Annan's envoy to Iraq, Prakash Shah.
U.N. inspectors in Iraq must certify that Baghdad has destroyed its chemical, nuclear and biological weapons and long-range missiles before the council will lift sweeping sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The invasion led to the Persian Gulf War.
Chief inspector Richard Butler met with French officials in Paris on yesterday and described Iraq's cooperation in recent weeks as "satisfactory," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anne Gazeau-Secret said.
"The United States does view the North Korean missile program as a serious threat to the region," State Department spokesperson James Rubin said yesterday, "and we continue to press North Korea to cease all development, testing and export of missiles and missile technology."
Rubin said the United States has made clear to North Korea that progress toward better relations would be hampered by further missile tests.
The North Koreans have been moving parts of their new Taepo Dong missile from storage to a launch pad since about Nov. 20, seen by U.S. spy satellites. American officials passed on to Japan a warning based on the intelligence collected, said a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity.
Japan was unnerved by the firing of a multistage North Korean rocket on Aug. 31.
The rocket flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean, proving the communist nation can strike any part of its neighbor's territory.
Although the rocket's third stage failed to place a satellite into orbit, as it was meant to do, it flew farther than North Korea's rocket program was thought capable of, and U.S. intelligence was caught off-guard by North Korea's ability to launch a three-stage system.
U.S. defense and intelligence officials have been saying for weeks they believed North Korea could be moving toward a second test launch before the end of the year. The official who spoke yesterday said North Korea is not yet "in the countdown stage" toward a second launch. The warning from Washington to the Japanese government was reported yesterday in Tokyo's Yomiuri newspaper, Japan's largest daily.
Japanese government spokesperson Hiromu Nonaka acknowledged yesterday that Tokyo was aware of "some kind of movement" in North Korea. He would not elaborate.
Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi confirmed Japan had received information about a North Korean launch in the works.
For the first time, the Marine Corps is using computer-assisted simulations and clips from television news coverage of war-torn Bosnia and the movie "Full Metal Jacket" about Marines in Vietnam to teach corporals and sergeants how to exert leadership in combat.
Simulators have been used for years for aviators, tank crewmembers and marksmanship courses, but the Combat Decisionmaking Range now being used here marks the technology's debut as a teaching tool for infantry squad leaders, the backbone of the Marine Corps.
"This will never take the place of live-fire training or going out in the hills and getting dirty," said James A. Lasswell, a retired Marine colonel now working for Gama Corp. of Falls Church, Va., which developed the course. "But maybe it will make squad leaders better prepared when they do go out to the real world."
Soon all eight active-duty Marine Corps regiments will receive the CD-ROMs and instruction manuals needed for the course.
Marine units assigned to amphibious assault ships will be able to sharpen their combat skills while afloat.
Army brass at Fort Benning, Ga., where the Army's infantry training is centered, are studying the course.
In March, Marines from the 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment - the first Marines to undergo the simulation training - will join other Marines in an urban-warfare exercise in Northern California as a kind of final examination.
Modeled after computerized training developed by the New York Fire Department for new battalion chiefs, the course has aspects of the military computer games that have flooded the civilian market. The goal, however, is not fun, but experience.
"We hope that if these Marines ever get into a combat situation, they will have seen something like it before and know how to react," said Capt. Mark Sullo, the former mathematics teacher who is the combat squad leaders' project officer.
The exercise begins with a budding squad leader standing at a lectern in front of a movie screen in a darkened room.
A squad is comprised of 13 Marines: three four-person rifle teams and a squad leader. It is a truism in the Marine Corps that if squad leaders fail or freeze or blunder, all the paper-smart planning by rear-echelon officers is worthless.
During the exercise, two officers in the room play the role of fire team leaders who need orders from the squad leader.
Another officer plays the role of the company commander who needs information from the squad leader on the location of his fire teams, what obstacles they have encountered and how they plan to overcome them.
The video rolls and soon the squad leader confronts the realistic dilemmas that could be expected in a modern Third World brush fire conflict where civilians are caught in the cross-fire and the adversary prefers ambush.
"Avoid civilian casualties," the captain on the video intones. "Remember, we're here to help these people."
Refugees rush toward the Marines, pleading for water. A mob turns ugly and begins to push and shove and claw at the Marines. Looting breaks out. A CNN crew shows up. Sniper fire pelts the ground.
A Marine is hit. The squad leader has to decide whether to attempt a rescue. Does he dare call for a helicopter evacuation when there is no secure landing zone? Does he call for an airstrike when he's unsure of the origin of the enemy fire?
Depending on the squad leader's decisions, a computer technician puts different graphics up on the screen to symbolize returned fire, tear gas, smoke bombs, casualties and more. Movements are plotted on a map.
Within a half an hour, a squad leader is forced to make 30 or more life-and-death decisions.
An initial review after the training began in July found "a large variability in decision-making skills." One area of concern was map-reading, with some squad leaders taking their squads hundreds of meters off course.
The goal of the exercise and other training is for squad leaders to learn how to both give and take orders, how to deal with immediate situations but not lose sight of the overall mission.
A common mistake for squad leaders is to attempt an immediate rescue of the fallen Marine with the result that another Marine is shot - a scene straight from "Full Metal Jacket," complete with sound effects.
"I've seen that movie over and over, and I still fell into the trap," said Cpl. Rodrick Bostick.
"It definitely made me think," said Lance Cpl. Shane Wathen. "I went blank a few times."
After the session, the squad leader's performance is critiqued. The critique touches on the sensitive issues that arise when the mission is half military, half humanitarian, and the media is watching.
The Marines undergo three sessions of combat simulation during a 12-day rigor of book work, lectures and field training. The video scenarios became more dicey, more hazardous.
 |
Around the World
|
Experts say the British study of 1,601 lung cancer patients marks the first time scientists have discovered a significant difference between the sexes in the risk of small-cell lung cancer. Virtually always caused by smoking, it is the hardest form of lung cancer to treat successfully.
The study, presented yesterday at a conference of the British Thoracic Society in London, showed that women under 65 were 1.7 times more vulnerable than men to small-cell lung cancer, which spreads so rapidly that by the time it is diagnosed, it is usually too late to operate.
Seven of 10 of the women could not be helped by surgery, and half the patients die within five months of diagnosis, said the study's lead researcher, Mike Pearson, associate director of the research unit of the Royal College of Physicians in London.
Men were more susceptible to non-small-cell lung cancer, which is less severe and can be operated on in half the cases, he added.
"One in four women will get small-cell lung cancer, whereas the figure for men was one in six," Pearson said.
About 2 million lung cancer cases are diagnosed every year worldwide - 85 percent of them linked to smoking.
Commenting on the study, Dr. Stephen Spiro, head of thoracic medicine at University College, London Hospital, said small-cell cancer accounts for about 20 percent of overall lung cancer cases. But because smoking is increasing among women, the latest study indicates the figure is now closer to about 38 percent, he said.
In 1965, 66 percent of men and 25 percent of women in Western countries smoked. By 1988, the proportion of men smoking dropped to 30 percent but the percentage of women smokers had increased to 35 percent, he noted.
The differences in the types of lung cancer that men and women get may be due to changing patterns of smoking behavior, Pearson said.
"Many women took up the habit a decade after men who smoked heavily during the second World War. Women may also smoke in a different way to men, for example taking shorter, sharper inhalations, which could have an effect on the kind and severity of cancer that they develop," Pearson added.
Australian Tax Office staff nationwide were put on alert yesterday after 21 explosive parcels were found in a Canberra mail center. Those bombs were discovered after another letter bomb exploded there, slightly injuring two postal workers hit by plastic shrapnel.
At least two more of the potentially lethal devices were sent to homes in Sydney and Melbourne.
There is concern more letter bombs could still be on their way, police said, and they were investigating a common link between all the addressees.
The Tax Office has taken steps to protect its employees, and a national memo to its 17,000 staff warned: "Please ensure that your families and others likely to open your mail are informed immediately."
The bombs are in white parcels about the size of a computer disk and just under an inch thick.
12-03-98
| Previous Article | Next Article |
should be sent to: daily.letters@umich.edu | should be sent to: online.daily@umich.edu |