NATION/WORLD
University Daily Kansan / Thursday, October 17, 1991
7
NATION/WORLD BRIEFS
Jerusalem
Mideast conference 'on course'
Military Executive
Secretary of State James A. Baker III said yesterday that plans to begin a Mideast peace conference this month were "still on course" after more than 12 hours of talks with Syrian President Hafer Assad.
But Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Sharara, at a news conference in Damascus, Syria, before Baker flew to Israel, said his country would boycott a phase of the negotiations until Israel showed it was willing to surrender land taken in the 1967 Mideast war.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said Israel's sattendance was not yet guaranteed.
Baker said, "We are still on course to hold the peace conference in this month of October."
peers in the conference.
In Washington, White House representative Martin Fitzwater it was possible that President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev would attend the opening of the conference in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Washington
Clinic-blocking issue debated
State, not federal, courts should deal with clinic-blocking abortion protesters, the Bush administration told the Supreme Court vester-hunting that it had violated a state's protections showed "states need federal help."
At issue is the availability of federal courts when abortion clinic owners sue to bar future blockades. The Justice Department lawyer argues that such actions may serve some what they would permit for others.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the law would give federal courts no authority over mobs that prevent Blacks and whites from attending school. "That's a very strange argument." O'Connor said.
Johannesburg
Government accused of violence
Political groups are locked in a bitter quarrel over claims that a government-backed "third force" is behind a wave of massacres in which hundreds have died.
The African National Congress alleged mounting violence in Black townships was the work of the white-led police and army. But the government denies security forces are involved.
Since the government and leading Black groups signed a treaty Sept. 14, more than 100 Blacks have been killed. Three mass shootings account for more than a third of the deaths.
-From the Associated Press
Bush attacks confirmation proceedings
Democratic senators say president should share blame for politicized process
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — After a brawl that left scant joy in victory, President George Bush vowed yesterday to push for changes in the Senate's confirmation process, but Democrats said he should share the blame for the spectacle that Clarence Thomas' nomination became.
"There's general agreement around the country and certainly in the Senate that the present process is not fair," Bush said one day after Thomas was confirmed as an associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court by a 52-48 Senate vote.
Thomas is expected to take his seat at the court on Monday. Officials said he might visit the White House this week to take an oath to uphold the Constitution. He must take a judicial oath Monday morning at the court.
Bush said he would present his ideas on changing the process soon.
"I owe the people my observations and more importantly some suggestions to you."
But the president was the target of complaints in the Senate. Some of the Southern Democrats who provided the crucial votes to confirm Thomas said that Bush had a one-sided view of the Senate's constitutional advice-and-consent role. The Senators said the president asked for the consent without the advice.
"We need to strengthen both the advice and the consent process," said Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga. When senators have legitimate concerns about nominees, the president must take those concerns seriously, not simply take the position that each nominee warrants unqualified support for political reasons."
Sen. John Breaux, D-La., who like Nunn voted for Thomas, said Bush should consult senators before sending them his nominations.
"Very little advice on this nominee was sought by the White House, and that's why they had very little consent," Breaux said on CBS "This Morning" program. "I think we have to improve both ends of those processes in order to improve the system."
Sen. Paul Simon, D-III., who opposed Thomas, introduced a non-binding "sense of the Senate" resolution, which said that in future nominations the president should conduct informal, bipartisan consultations with some members of the Senate before he made his selection. It urgges that the president "keep philosophical balance in mind" in deciding on the next nominee.
Sunnan, a member of the Judiciary Committee that conducted three days of public hearings into the details of the sexual harassment allegations against Thomas, said the panel should have asked harder questions of the nominee.
"You had two different approaches," Simon said during his appearance with Breatx on CBS "This Morning." "On the Republican side, they were advocates (for Thomas). They had a very clear focus. On the Democratic side, they were less focused in the facts and were less advocates, and there were people who were disappointed in that approach."
Sorr, Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a leader of the fight for Thomas on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the process "just lousy" and urged the senate to sentences by Anita Hill were leaked to the press.
Former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, now a Republican candidate for the Senate in Pennsylvania, called for establishing a permanent office to counsel the president and the Congress on nominees and confirmation. It would privily investigate any nominee requiring confirmation, and it would report to the Senate.
Both Hatch and Breaux criticized the involvement of special-interest groups, which Breaux said engaged in "a search-and-find process" to find one incident" to discredit a nominee.
But there were interest groups on both sides of the Thomas nomination, exercising constitutional rights to advocate their views.
Loretta Ucelli, a representative for the National Abortion Rights Action League, one of the groups that opposed Thomas, defended
the group's conduct. She said that the process was so politicized because of the political nature of the nomination of Thomas, a conservative African-American whom liberals suspected of anti-abortion views despite the judge's denial of any opinion on the issue.
"Part of the problem is that the Bush and Reagan administrations have applied an anti-choice litmus test for the last 11 years," Ucelli said. "They politicized the process."
Nnum delivered a long speech on the Senate floor complaining that the Judiciary Committee's extraordinary hearings last week should have been conducted in private session even though the substance of Hill's allegations had been made public.
But he said Bush should be willing to consult the Senate if confidentiality was to be maintained.
"The president cannot have it both ways." Nunn said. "If he wants to rely on confidential information, then he must be willing to engage in serious discussions with the Senate when serious, legitimate questions are raised about the qualifications of nominees based on FBI reports."
Nunn said the Armed Services Committee, which he heads, had quietly stopped a number of administration nominations for other positions after private inquiries into allegations of sexual and other forms of misconduct.
Senate panel prepares to vote on Gates' nomination
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee appears poised to approve President Bush's nomination of Robert Gates to head the CIA, leaving opponents hoping to make their case before the full Senate.
Only a handful of Democratic senators remain undecided as the committee approaches a Friday vote about whether to recommend Gates' confirmation to their Senate colleagues.
With the panel's seven Republicans forming a solid phalanx in support of Gates and chairperson David Boren, D-Okla., considered likely to join them, a favorable majority of the 15-member committee seems assured.
Administration officei al s appeared cheered about Gates' over all prospects because they unlikely that the Senate will take on
another bruising battle so soon after its fight about the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.
"I have a theory that the Senate doesn't like to do things twice in a row," said Tom Korologos, a lobbyist helping the White House guide Gates' nomination through Senate.
But Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., who led critical questioning of Gates during three weeks of hearings, said the nomination wouldn't be until late October, allowing a rest and time to focus on some clear issues.
"It's a different kind of situation with a different nominee and different issues," he said.
For the senators who are undecided on the intelligence panel, the choices remain much as they were when the committee completed
Marlin Fitzwater, White House representative, asked about any repercussions for Gates after the Thomas nomination fight, said, "It's impossible to say whether there will be an effect. We hope not. Every nomination should be considered on its own merits."
three weeks of hearings on Gates on Oct. 4, before the nation's attention was diverted to the uproar about Thomas
One of those who remains uncommitted, Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, was concerned enough after the hearings to submit written questions to Gates on issues including whether the CIA slanted intelligence to Pakistan's men in their weapons program to avoid a cutoff of U.S.Aid,
"There are a number of things left unanswered," said Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, who with Bradley and Ernest Hollings, D.S.C., is expected to vote against the nomination.
Panel members who haven't announced or indicated a position include Glenn, Sen. Sam Nunn, D-
Ga., Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz, and Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif.
As the hearings went on, senators discussed discrepancies in evidence about Gates' knowledge of Iran-Contra, the Reagan administration's arms to Iran and diverted profits to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels.
They also explored allegations that he doctored intelligence reports to conform to administration political views. Conflicts remain in both of these areas.
A series of at least eight instances when evidence points to Gates' knowledge of Iran-Contra has gone largely unanswered except for the nominee's insistence that he either doesn't remember or considered the evidence flimsy.
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