TUESDAY,MARCH 25,2003
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
Roberts predicts war victory
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — Coalition military forces will find weapons of mass destruction and win the war in Iraq, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee predicted yesterday.
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said that as troops continued their advance toward Baghdad they would find chemical and biological weapons that Saddam Hussein had long denied he possessed. Roberts said it served no purpose to use the discovery to show up French and German opposition to the war.
"We're not going to rub their noses in it," Roberts said. "You just hope over time the problems will pass."
He was in Kansas for a series of meetings and to present the bronze star to Thomas Martin of Tecumseh, a World War II veteran who served in Europe.
Roberts said many of Saddam's chemical and biological weapons have been placed underground and are "highly mobile labs" that were developed following the end
of weapons inspections that lapsed for five years in the late 1990s.
As the war moves closer to Baghdad, Roberts said the nation should be prepared for casualties and prisoners, a consequence of being at war.
"I don't want war. I don't think anyone wants war," he said. "But we are already at war."
He warned Iraq to comply with international treaties in taking care of coalition prisoners, including Pfc. Patrick Miller of Park City.
"The news involving his treatment at the hands of the Iraqi government is very disturbing," Roberts said. "It is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention."
Roberts said the war against terrorist organizations and Iraq were part of the larger effort to make the nation and the world safe. He added the United States had the authority to remove the Iraqi regime following a 1998 Senate resolution given to President Clinton.
Further, he said, countless U.N. resolutions following the end of the 1991 war have been
ignored.
When the war is over, French, German and United Nations support for the reconstruction will be necessary and expected, Roberts said. However, despite success in humanitarian and peacekeeping, the world body is facing a critical time.
He did not think that Americans would lose their resolve to wage war based on the television coverage from the hundreds of journalists embedded with coalition forces.
He said despite the 28 million leaflets dropped over Iraq telling soldiers how to surrender, it is evident that Saddam's troops will resort to ambush tactics. Roberts said coalition forces will adjust accordingly.
Roberts said intelligence agencies monitoring terrorist cells have reported conversations have taken a tone of "despair and lament because they know we are gaining the upper hand." He based that assessment on the efforts in Iraq and coalition raids in Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent days.
The Associated Press
VALLEY CENTER — Folks here were making yellow ribbons yesterday as news that one of their own has been captured by the Iraqis spread in this small south-central town of 5.000 people nine miles north of Wichita.
POW's hometown prays, grieves
Friends and neighbors of 23 year-old Pfc. Patrick Miller also came together for prayer. Miller graduated from Valley Center High School in 1998.
His wife, Jessa, and their two children — 4-year-old Tyler and 7-month-old Makenzie — moved from Texas, where he was based, to nearby Park City to be closer to family when he was sent overseas in December.
Rev. Ron Pracht, minister of Olivet Southern Baptist Church in Wichita, married the couple shortly before his deployment. Jessa Miller has been in seclusion since news arrived of her husband's capture, he said.
"They were really committed to making the marriage work
and were hoping his career in the military would provide some stability" Pracht said.
At the First United Methodist Church in Valley Center, the site of a planned community-wide prayer service, people volunteered to make yellow ribbons.
"Regardless of where you stand on all this — we have to support our troops," said Michele Ellington, church secretary.
The soldier's half brother, Thomas Hershberger, 27, of Derby, said he wants the United States to finish the war "as fast as possible" so his brother can come home.
"She is not doing the best right now," Hershberger said of his mother, Mary Pickering, who now lives in New Mexico. "I haven't had a conversation with her without her crying."
The video footage aired on Iraqi TV showed Miller answering questions in a shaky voice, his eyes darting back and forth between an interviewer and
"Regardless of where you stand on all this — we have to support
our troops."
Michele Ellington Olivet Southern Baptist Church secretary
another person who couldn't be seen on camera.
Asked why he came to Iraq, he replied, "I come to fix broke stuff."
Asked if he came to shoot Iraqis, he answered, "No, I come to shoot only if I am shot at. They don't bother me, I don't bother them."
That sounded like something his brother would say, Hershberger said.
"He is kind of cocky — he didn't act scared at all," Hershberger said.