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Friday, November 3, 2000
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Bush admits to 25-year-old DUI
The Associated Press
WEST ALLIS, Wis. — Texas Gov. George W. Bush said yesterday he was arrested and pleaded guilty nearly 25 years ago to driving while under the influence of alcohol.
Confirming reports that surfaced five days before Election Day, the GOP presidential nominee said in a hurriedly arranged news conference, "I've often times said that years ago I made some mistakes. I occasionally drank too much, and I did on that night. I regret that it happened."
The Sept. 4, 1976, incident first was reported by Fox News. Bush, who was 30 years old at the time, said he had chosen to keep the incident private, but his hand was forced by the news outlets.
— days before the election."
Suggesting that politics may have played a role in the incident surfacing now, Bush said, "I think that's an interesting question. Why now?
For months, the GOP nominee has refused to answer questions about
indiscretions," including whether he used illegal drugs in the 1960s and early 1970s. He continued to avoid specifics last night, saying he has "been straightforward with the people, saying that I used to drink too much
in the past. I'm straightforward with people saying I don't drink now."
Bush: paid a fine and had driving privileges revoked.
Chris Lehane, representative for the Gore campaign, said, "We had absolutely nothing to do with this."
Bush's campaign staff jumped into action after the news broke, tracking down the arresting officer and quickly arranging a rare news conference for the Texas governor—his first in a month.
Aides said Bush was pulled aside near his family's Kennebunkport, Maine, summer home after visiting a bar with friends and a family member during the Labor Day weekend.
Representative Mindy Tucker said Bush, who had been drinking beer, paid a $150 fine and had his driving privileges revoked in the state of Maine for a short period. His drivers' license in Texas, where Bush lived at the time, was not revoked or suspended, she said.
"I didn't want to talk about this in front of my daughters," said Bush, who is father of 18-year-old twins.
Calvin Bridges, identified as the arresting officer'by the Bush campaign and documents made available by the Bush campaign, said in a telephone interview that he recalls driving home from work after midnight and spotting a car slipping briefly onto the shoulder before getting back on the road.
Bush, the driver, failed a road sobriety test and a second test in the police station, registering a 0.10 blood-alcohol level — the legal limit at the time. Bridges said.
Asked about Bush's demeanor, the retired officer said, "The man was, and I say this without being facetious, a picture of integrity. He gave no resistance. He was very cooperative."
The GOP presidential nominee, 54,
has said he quit drinking the day
after his 40th birthday — July 6, 1988.
Bush's running mate Dick Cheney, 59, had two driving while intoxicated offenses when he was in his early 20s, in 1962 and 1963, according to his press secretary Juleanna Glover Weiss. She couldn't provide details.
Former professor appeals decision
A former University of Kansas law professor is urging an appeals court to reinstate his lawsuit against the University, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported yesterday.
Emil A. Tonkovich was fired in 1993, nine months after a student charged that he demanded sex from her and she complied because she thought it might harm her grade if she refused.
Tonkovich contends that U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Van Bebber ered in throwing out his lawsuit against KU regents, administrators and professors last February.
Tonkovich wrote a 68-page argument which he recently filed at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
The Capital-Journal said Tonkovich wanted to get the case out of Kansas, where judges may be partial because of connections to the law school. Tonkovich is the husband of Douglas County District Attorney Christine Tonkovich.
Manhattan Project report copies helped educate Iraqi bombmaker
The Associated Press
— Kansan staff report
WASHINGTON — A former high-ranking official in Iraq's nuclear weapons program says he got American help in designing a bomb for Saddam Hussein: library copies of reports on the 1940s Manhattan Project.
One of only three or four nuclear physicists in Iraq when the bomb project began in the 1970s, Khidhir Hamza, a nuclear physicist who defected in 1994, says he found the Manhattan Project report at Iraq's atomic energy library "in a corner with a pile of dust on them, sitting there telling me exactly what to do."
The Manhattan Project was the crash U.S. government program in which scientists developed the atomic bomb and produced the two that were dropped on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II. In a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Hamza did not say how the Iraqi library got the reports, which like much other information are readily available
around the world now.
He has said previously, however, that Iraq had a program before the 1991 Persian Gulf War of searching open literature and getting close to people in the United States who had classified information. Specifically, Iraqi students in the United States combed university libraries for bomb-building information, and Iraqi agents and scientists collected data at American scientific conferences and elsewhere, he has said.
Hamza, who co-authored the just-released book Saddam's Bombmaker, said Iraqi scientists and engineers concealed their work from international inspectors by simply locking doors and leading inspectors past them.
Hamza said he believes Iraq could build a nuclear weapon "within months" if it got fissionable material from Russia or on the black market. Without that, he said, it would need to rebuild destroyed factories to produce its own material, which would require two or three years.
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Getting caught in a Red Zone could get you a lot more.
Hey KU fans, GET CAUGHT IN A RED ZONE by Coca-Cola. If Coke catches you drinking a 20 oz. Coca-Cola Classic at any of the designated Red Zones* you could instantly win a free prize courtesy of KU and Coca-Cola.
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