UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, March 30, 1995
58
Diplomacy key to release of U.S. captives in Iraq
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Despite calls by Republican presidential aspirants for more saber-rattling, outside analysts say quiet diplomacy is the best hope for winning the release of two Americans captured by Iraq.
Clinton administration officials, goaded by GOP presidential candidates Pat Buchanan and Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, publicly say they haven't ruled out military action. But several analysts dismissed that as a faretched course with scant prospect of success.
The administration has made clear that, for the time being at least, it is counting on diplomatic pressure and is trying to enlist the aid of Russia, France, Turkey and other countries that want to help Iraq emerge from its pariah status. Meanwhile, U.S. officials are trying to avoid public diatribes that could increase
the value of the captives in the mind of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
CNN reported that the two captives — civilian aircraft mechanics David Daliberti of Jacksonville, Fla., and William Barloon of New Hampton, Iowa, — were haggard but in good health yesterday. They insisted to CNN that they were in U.N.-marked territory when they were arrested while on their way to visit friends.
The behind-the-scenes diplomacy is aimed at convincing Iraq that it has "absolutely nothing to gain by holding these Americans," said a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
With a trade embargo already in place on all but humanitarian goods, the United States has little in the way of economic options against Saddam.
But that situation could work in the U.S. favor because Iraq is desperate to get the embargo lifted, said Brent Scowcroft, who was President Bush's national security adviser.
"We don't have any more leverage," he said. "The only thing we can try to do is make it look like he's pushing the end of the embargo further away." Moreover, Iraq in the past has commuted long sentences for foreigners who strayed over the border.
The United Nations imposed sanctions including a crippling oil embargo after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Oil exports accounted for 95 percent of Iraq's foreign revenue before that invasion, which led to the Persian Gulf War.
Baghdad's current behavior
meting out eight-year prison sentences to the two Americans — is being portrayed as undercutting efforts by Russia and France, which are arguing Iraq's case to U.N. colleagues. Both nations expect substantial financial gain if trade is opened with the Persian Gulf giant. The United States strongly opposes relaxing the U.N. sanctions.
At the same time, Scowcroft said, the administration is right to reject a specific carrot approach in which a softer line on the U.N. embargo or anything else would be offered for the two captives' freedom.
"I wouldn't bargain with them over this," he said. "It's an outrage. There's nothing to discuss."
Saddam must be convinced that "seizing these people is not going to affect U.S. policy," he said. "If we make a big thing about it, then he figures he's got leverage."
Kenneth Katzman of the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said that even without a quid pro quo, the administration could let France and Russia know "that we take this as a sign of whether or not Iraq can be trusted."
Several analysts said that while military action should never be ruled out entirely, it wouldn't work in this case.
"There's no way we can use force with confidence that it would achieve any purpose," said former National Security Council aide Richard Haass, who advised Bush during the Persian Gulf War and has written on the appropriate use of force.
The military approach would likely entail either a special mission to locate and snatch the captives — with hopes they wouldn't be killed in the process — or persuasive
force against specific targets "until the Iraqis shouted uncle and let them go," said Haass.
But the problem would be predicting Iraq's reaction — it could respond by hurting the captives or "take the pain" and hope for international condemnation of the United States for disproportionate use of force, he said.
Senate Majority leader Bob Dole of Kansas implicitly criticized his two GOP presidential foes, Buchanan and Lugar, yesterday for their suggestion that President Clinton raise the specter of military force.
Military action cut put the two Americans at risk, Dole said.
Driver hedges in Simpson case
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — With his powers of observation challenged, a limousine driver waffled yesterday, testifying he was not so sure O.J. Simpson's Ford Bronco wasn't parked outside his estate the night of the double murder.
"I wouldn't say I'm positive," Allan Park told jurors. "I wasn't looking for a car; I was looking for an address."
Park's second day on the stand was preceded by an explosive defense disclosure outside the jury's presence. Attorney Carl Douglas said prosecutor Marcia Clark misrepresented to the judge new evidence she said would show that Simpson argued fiercely with his ex-wife a mere eight hours before her murder June 12, 1994.
Douglas said the witness Clark quoted in a sidebar conference denies ever saying she saw Simpson having an "angry, yelling" conversation on his cellular phone at the Riviera Country Club.
Douglas demanded monetary sanctions against Clark; the judge said he would review the sidebar transcript and the phone records before ruling.
Deputy District Attorney Christopher Darden also drew sharp criticism from the defense when he announced he would have new evidence today regarding a small black bag, which witnesses have said Simpson insisted on handling himself the night of the murders.
"We hope to present more evidence tomorrow relative to what
happened to the bag in which the bloody clothes were carried in," Darden said. Police have found no bloody clothes and no murder weapon.
"All his case is based on hopes and dreams," defense attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. snapped, accusing Darden of trying to grab attention by creating "a sound bite."
For jurors, it was a theatrical day, with defense attorneys and a prosecutor hauling pieces of luggage up to the witness stand for Park to examine.
The limo driver identified two pieces of luggage as identical to those he loaded for Simpson. He was confused about a golf bag, however, and said a garment bag could not have been the second "duffel bag" he remembers putting in the limo trunk.
Superior court Judge Lance Ito refused to allow bag of still another, smaller bag that Cochran said might have been the one described by Park and Simpson's former house guest Brian "Kato" Kaelin, and referred to Darden.
including the allegedly missing bag, which they have suggested was filled with golf balls and ultimately tucked inside the golf bag Simpson took to Chicago.
Simpson's lawyers have attacked each piece of prosecution evidence.
Prosecutors contend he fatally slashed Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman before he left on that business trip.
Park, who gave precise testimony about the minutes ticking by as he waited to drive Simpson to the airport, said under direct examination Tuesday that he saw no sign of a white Bronco parked in front of Simpson's estate when he arrived at 10:22 p.m. June 12.
The prosecution claims the Bronco was absent because Simpson had driven it two miles to his ex-wife's condominium to commit murder, then returned in time to meet the limousine. Park testified he saw a black person, about 6 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds, slip into Simpson's house just before 11 p.m. Less than a minute later, Simpson answered the buzzer, said he'd overset and would be right out.
The defense says Simpson was at home all evening, and a neighbor's maid has said she saw the Bronco parked in the street that night. Under Cochran's cross-examination, Park acknowledged that he was focusing on finding Simpson's Rockingham Avenue address that night and wasn't looking at cars.
"You cannot tell this jury positively that a vehicle was parked there outside the Rockingham gate or, not can," Cochran asked.
"No," Park said.
First lady speaks to give women their own voices
The Associated Press
NEW DELHI, India — Hillary Rodham Clinton has spoken about the importance of giving women a stronger voice at each stop on her tour of South Asia, but it was with the words of a college student that she best expressed her feelings.
The first lady ended her speech at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation yesterday with a poem entitled "Silence," written for her by Anasuya Sengupta, an Indian woman completing her last year of college.
"Too many women in too many countries speak the same language — silence," the poem begins.
It ends: "We seek only to give words to those who cannot speak. ... I seek only to forget the sorrows of my grandmother's silence."
Mrs. Clinton was given the poem on Tuesday and stayed up late to incorporate it into her address.
"I just was overwhelmed by it," she said later.
In her speech, Mrs. Clinton rejected suggestions that her focus on the health and education of women and girls was soft and of secondary importance to larger problems.
She said concerns "labeled dismissively as women's issues belonging at best on the edge of serious debate" are in fact central to larger political and economic concerns.
"Deeply rooted attitudes about the value of girls are hard to change, but we must try to persuade mothers and fathers to invest love, attention and resources in their girls, starting with education and
health care," Mrs. Clinton said. "We must develop a new language to replace the deafening silence that still sounds too often when women's concerns are raised."
That message is particularly pertinent in the maledominated Indian subcontinent where women lag behind men in education, literacy and a variety of health statistics.
Little value is placed on the household and farm work that women perform, contributing to high levels of child marriage, female infanticide and inferior care for young girls. Female bondage and forced prostitution are widespread in some parts of Indian society, and violence against women is rising.
Mrs. Clinton used her appearance to announce that the first $500,000 of a new $100 million U.S. program to educate women and girls around the world would be used for a grant to groups working to expand the education of females in India.
She also met privately yesterday with Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao as part of a broader effort by the Clinton administration to strengthen U.S. ties with India, the world's most populous democracy.
Once regarded as an ally of the Soviet Union, India's relations with the United States have warmed with the end of the Cold War and free-market reforms launched in 1991.
However, significant differences between the two countries remain, including U.S. concern about human rights and India's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Human rights groups have been critical of the first lady for not speaking out
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ULTIMATE FRISBEE TOURNAMENT Games played all weekend at 23rd & Iowa 30 men's and women's ultimate teams from all over the country
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Is the problem with the media- or with us?
For people of color, every week seems to bring the televised fall of another of their heroes.
AMANZAA
SPECTRUM OF STUDENTS IN JOURNAL ARM
presents a discussion of the future of people of color in the confusing world of national media with:
Lewis Diuguid Columnist,
The Kansas City Star
Joe Rodriguez Reporter,
The Wichita Eagle
Michelle Santos Reporter, The Wichita Eagle
5:30 p.m., Thursday, March 30, at 100 Stauffer-Flint Please bring your thoughts on the future
STUDENT SENATE