8A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY,OCTOBER 31.2007
>> BEACH HOUSE FIRE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
People gather outside Oakview Elementary school in Simpsonville, S.C., on Monday for a memorial service for the seven college students who died Sunday in a beach house fire at Ocean Isle Beach, N.C.
Student makes lucky leap to escape
BY PETE IACOBELLI ASSOCIATED PRESS
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A student who survived a beach house inferno by leaping from a third-story window said Tuesday he wasn't sure what woke him up, but he had to make the decision to jump quickly because smoke was filling the room.
Tripp Wylie, a student at the University of South Carolina, said he heard crackling and popping after he awoke Sunday, then opened the bedroom door, letting smoke in. He went to the window and saw flames coming from the front of the house. As it became harder to breathe, he stuck his head outside.
"You knew you had to jump at some point; that was the only option," he told ABC's "Good Morning America."
Wylie said he made "a very lucky jump" into a canal that runs next to the house, clearing the concrete bank of the waterway to reach safety. His friends weren't as lucky. Seven of them died in the fire at the Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., beach house, and six others were injured escaping it. The victims included an aspiring
attorney, a high school homecoming queen, fraternity men and sorority women. They were ardent football fans, out for a good time at the beach.
Six of those killed attended the University of South Carolina. A seventh went to Clemson University. Officials have said many were members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and Delta Delta Delta sorority — and some had gone to high school together in Greenville.
"There are no words to describe what we've been going through," Chip Auman — whose family owns the Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., vacation house — said while visiting his hospitalized daughter. "We are living a nightmare."
Debbie Smith, mayor of the resort community, said Monday investigators believe the fire was likely accidental and started in the rear of the house, either on or near a deck facing a canal. That side of the home appeared to be the most heavily damaged. Most of the victims were found in the home's five bedrooms.
Randy Thompson, director of emergency services in Brunswick County, N.C., said Tuesday that local
officials hope to receive an initial report from North Carolina state investigators on Friday. Ocean Isle Beach officials have said they don't expect any word on a possible cause until after a review of that and other reports.
"It's an awful loss for someone that had a pretty good future in front of her," Terry Walden said of his daughter, Allison, from his Ohio home. "It sounded like they were having a good time. Unfortunately, the fire didn't show any mercy."
Investigators quizzed dozens of college students who filled several homes near the site of the disaster.
Brebcca Wood, the president of the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity at the University of North Carolina, said police wanted to know if the college students used a grill or small outdoor fireplace. She told investigators all the grilling was done far from the house. Police in the beachfront community are working with the State Bureau of Investigation and federal officials. Autopsies will take place at the state medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill.
"It may be a few days," spokeswoman Sharon Artis said. "We have not identified any of them yet."
Condolences have been flooding into the Columbia school of 27,000 students, and officials urged them to support each other.
"Please reach out to one another, don't let others suffer in silence," school president Andrew Sorensen told a nighttime gathering of about 1,000 students.
About 90 miles from Columbia in Simpsonville, more than 100 people gathered at an elementary school to pray for the victims. University officials said names of those who died may not be released until Wednesday, but some relatives and friends of the victims talked Monday about their losses.
Anna Lee Rhea said her older brother, William, was among the dead — a devastating blow to their brother Andrew, who made it out of the house alive." Everybody loved him. Everybody really misses him," she said in a brief telephone interview from the family's home in Florence. "You couldn't help but love him." Anna Lee Rhea said her brother was a huge fan of South Carolina's Gamecocks. The brother of another victim, Justin Anderson, said the same thing about him.
Amanda Palacio, who went to high school with South Carolina freshman Lauren Mahon in Simpsonville, described her best friend as someone who talked fast and was always on the go. "She was a great girl. She still is," Palacio said. Mahon and Palacio were born three days apart and Palacio said they looked forward to celebrating their 19th birthday party together in the spring.
BLACKWATER
Iraq approves draft law lifting foreign immunities
BY STEVEN R. HURST ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government approved a draft law for Tuesday to lift immunity for foreign security companies including Blackwater USA, a bid to overturn a decree imposed more than three years ago by the U.S. official who ran the country after the American-led invasion.
The legislation could have a chilling effect on security companies operating in Iraq, though the vast sums they and their guards are paid are likely to weigh more heavily than the possibility of legal jeopardy.
The draft law, expected to be
The draft passed overwhelmingly by parliament, is also certain to deepen tensions between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government.
P r i m e
Minister Nouri
al-Maliki has
promised to
push through the legislation amid public outrage over Blackwater's seemingly unprovoked killing of 17 Iraqis last month as well as a series of other Iraqi civilian deaths allegedly at the hands of foreign contractors.
The offer for limited immunity has delayed the government's criminal inquiry of the shootings and threatens to derail prosecution as investigators seek other evidence from the crime scene.
A Pentagon official said Tuesday that Defense and State department officials had reached a "general understanding" that the American military command in Baghdad should have more oversight of the U.S. government's private security contractors in Iraq.
Because the Iraqi draft law would not be retroactive, any punishment for those shootings would be left to the United States, said Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. It is unclear what U.S. criminal laws might cover acts in a war zone; civilian contractors cannot be tried in military courts.
"We need to be more clear" on rules for the use of force and coordination of the movement of the contractors, whether they work for the State Department or the Defense Department, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.
The U.S. and Iraq were already at loggerheads over Blackwater, which guards American diplomats in Iraq. The problem was compounded by reports that the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security granted limited immunity to the Blackwater guards involved in the Sept. 16 shooting in west Baghdad's Nisoor Square.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats criticized the Bush administration for giving immunity to the
bodyguards, calling the move a failure to hold the security contractors responsible for the shooting deaths.
Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat running for president, demanded to know whether Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was aware of the immunity offers and agreed with it. In a letter to Rice Tuesday, Obama asked whether the FBI and Justice Department were consulted before limited immunity
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, who sits on two Senate panels that oversee the State Department and the Justice Department, called the deal an example of "the amnesty administration."
was offered.
The White House had little to say about the matter Tuesday. President Bush ignored a question on the arrangement shouted after his meeting with the president of
Uganda. And his spokeswoman dodged most questions about it at her daily briefing for reporters, referring them to the State Department.
"It is under review," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. "Anyone who has engaged in criminal behavior will be prosecuted."
The State Department, whose investigators initially promised to shield the bodyguards' statements in the criminal inquiry, maintained that any lawbreakers "must be held to account" as a result of the inquiry that has since been taken over by the Justice Department and FBI.
The offer for limited immunity has delayed the government's criminal inquiry of the shootings and threatens to derail prosecution as investigators seek other evidence from the crime scene now six weeks cold.
The deal would not prevent the Blackwater guards from being prosecuted in U.S. courts. However, prosecutors would have to prove they did not use information gleaned from the bodyguards' statements — or anything related to them — when seeking criminal charges. Investigators would have to find other credible witnesses or evidence to make their case.
Al-Maliki has demanded that the United States end its relationship with Blackwater within six months and that $8 million in compensation be paid for each victim. Blackwater is the largest private security firm protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq.
U. S. officials in both Baghdad and Washington have said nothing publicly about al-Maliki's demands, which he issued on the recommendation of an Iraqi investigative committee that studied the Sept. 16 incident.