MONDAY,NOV.26,2001
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
WAR ON TERRORISM
Growth, tax cuts center of Senate disputes
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — With Congress returning this week, top Bush administration officials prodded the Democrat-controlled Senate yesterday to act on a stimulus proposal, and defended the president's emphasis on corporate tax cuts as a cure for the limping economy.
The Senate's top Democrat said he was troubled by the idea of corporate tax cuts at a time when companies are laying off workers.
"They're letting people off in numbers that we've got to be concerned about," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said on Fox News Sunday.
But White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey said: "We have to start creating paychecks instead of unemployment checks." He warned anew that President Bush will veto spending proposals he views as excessive.
"What we have to do is target tax relief to the sectors of the economy that need it most, that can use it most, put more money in consumers' pockets and avoid this excessive spending binge that some people in the Senate seem to be on," Lindsey said.
sart.
Bush and Democrats generally agree on the need to extend unemployment benefits, issue a new batch of tax rebate checks and accelerate depreciation tax write-offs for businesses. But Democrats have balked at the White House's call to accelerate the income tax rate cuts approved earlier this year and repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax.
The depreciation and corporate alternative minimum tax measures would provide 300,000 new jobs, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said yesterday.
Lindsey said the stimulus package "should not be about the partisan division."
The GOP-controlled House has approved a $100 billion stimulus package weighted heavily in favor of tax relief.
Tribal forces seize a part of Taliban supply route
Aided by U.S. warplanes, the fighters pushed back a Taliban force Saturday afternoon and seized part of the road between Kandahar and Spinboldak, on the border with Pakistan, said a leader, Abdul Jabbar.
The Associated Press
There were conflicting reports of the number of dead, with one tribal official saying as many as 80 Taliban died.
CHAMAN, Pakistan — Anti-Taliban tribal fighters in southern Afghanistan cut a key road leading to the Islamic militia's stronghold of Kandahar and were approaching the city, tribal leaders said yesterday.
Jabbar said tribal forces yesterday night seized Tarkoter, an area three miles from Kandahar's airport. Taliban fighters
briefly resisted before fleeing, he said.
The reports could not be independently confirmed because the Taliban have not allowed journalists to travel to Kandahar, their last major refuge after retreats from the capital, Kabul, and other big cities.
If true, the attack by tribal fighters would be one of their boldest since ethnic Pashtun leaders launched efforts weeks ago to persuade remaining Taliban commanders to surrender. It would also signal further erosion of Taliban power in the last areas under their control.
The 70-mile road from Spinboldak to Kandahar had served as a Taliban supply route and is a key route for traders from Pakistan.
Many residents have fled Kandahar, which has come under fierce bombardment since President Bush launched a military campaign Oct. 7 against the Taliban and bin Laden, chief suspect in the September terrorist attacks in the United States.
In Quetta yesterday, dozens of Pashtun tribal chiefs from Afghanistan said at a meeting that they would send a delegation to the Taliban to urge them to surrender.
Gen Mohammed Zaer Azimi, a Shiite Muslim commander with the alliance in Herat, said clashes were continuing around Helmand yesterday ahead of a major attack on the Taliban stronghold. It was not clear when the offensive was planned.
WASHINGTON — U.S. forces in Afghanistan are commanded from a base in Tampa, Fla., a balmy setting more than 7,700 miles from Kabul.
Forces commanded from Florida
The Central Command, one of nine U.S. military commands covering different parts of the world, evolved from a smaller unit based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa — partly because of past problems in Afghanistan.
The Associated Press
Lt. Col. Chip Compton, a Central Command spokesman, said moving the command had been discussed. "Historically, it's not been politically feasible," he said. "My guess is that the countries feel uncomfortable having a full-time American presence."
volatile nature of the region makes it tough for the command to move closer to the action, so it has stayed in Florida. The command is responsible for U.S. security interests in 25 nations that stretch from the Horn of Africa through the Arabian Gulf into Central Asia.
Headquarters work primarily focuses on administrative duties, so a command's base may not matter as much in warfare that
The Central Command's leader, Gen. Tommy Franks, is far from isolated from his troops. The highest-ranking U.S. military officer to go inside Afghanistan in the course of the war, he began last week in Uzbekistan, met at Bagram air base near Kabul, the Afghan capital, with top northern alliance officials, then headed for a tour of the Persian Gulf region.
relies on satellites and lasers.
Problems in Afghanistan are partly responsible for the creation of the Central Command.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran led President Carter in 1980 to set up the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, under the U.S. Readiness Command at MacDill. The task force was designed to respond quickly to crises and project American power across the Middle East and Africa.
In 1983, President Reagan converted it to a full, permanent unified command covering an area twice the size of the continental United States. Encompassing Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Gulf states, former Soviet republics and parts of Africa, it contains vast energy resources as well as key air and sea lines.
The first leader of the Central Command, Gen. Robert Kingston, had to overcome skepticism about the command's ability to run military operations so far from its base. Some of his questioning colleagues were in the European Command, which had a headquarters in Germany and available forces much closer to the region, command historian Jay E. Hines said.
Over the years, the Central Command has managed the Gulf War and Operation Southern Watch, part of the international response to Iraqi noncompliance with a U.N. Security Council resolution passed after the Gulf War. Providing aid to Somalia and Kenya in 1992 also was among its assignments.
"So far Tampa has worked fairly well," said Daniel Goure, an intelligence and defense expert at the Lexington Institute for public policy in Washington. "It becomes a real stretch if we go after Iraq."
If the United States goes after Iraq, some analysts expect the Central Command to move closer to the region, as Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf did when he set up camp in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, during the Gulf War.
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