8A the university daily kansan
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wednesday, ianuary 28, 2004
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DELTA FORCE New candidate seeks diversity active students
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Scott McKenzie said his work on previous campaigns had taught him that Swenson would especially have to target one large group of students: those who don't usually vote.
"The biggest problem for Delta Force is the 80-plus percent of students that aren't voting and could care less about Student Senate," Scott McKenzie said. "Usually we lost by less than 1,000 votes. With 15- to 20,000 still out there, we could easily make up that deficit."
The KUnited coalition, which defeated Delta Force for the executive positions last year, has yet to announce its candidates for student body president and vice president this year.
No other coalitions have announced candidates, either.
Student body vice president Catherine Bell of KUnited, said she hadn't worked with Swenson much but still vouched for his character.
"I know he's very nice and he appears to be very dedicated," Bell said. "I'm not sure what he's been working on lately, but he does seem to care about students."
Swenson said one of his recent projects was going to the statehouse in Topeka to encourage legislators to support Governor Kathleen Sebelius' proposed 3 percent increase in the higher education budget.
Swenson met with Sebelius Monday and said she was excited to get the support of University senators.
Swenson said his drive to make the University better stemmed from a long-time love of everything Jayhawk.
"Both my parents went to KU, so I've always been a KU guy through and through," Swenson said.
— Edited by Stephanie Lovett
Kathy Jansen is the president of the Classified Senate, the representative body of the University's classified state employees. She said Sebellius' plan didn't correct three years of not receiving pay increases.
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BUDGET: Funding changes worry University staff
"It's very nice of the governor," Jansen said, "but it's an unfunded mandate."
Jansen and other classified Senators will still travel to Topeka Feb. 10 to ask the Legislature for a 7.5 percent increase in pay for state employees.
Jansen said the budget was a step in the right direction for employees.
Eakin also approved of the budget. He said despite some
"We are pushing for this budget to pass in the Legislature. Even if it does affect students' fees, it's a very good budget from the Governor."
Blake Shuart Legislative director of the Student Legislative Advisory Board
problems, the budget was in its best financial shape in years.
The operating grant applied to all state universities will reach an all-time high in 2005, at $5 million, and the state general
fund is more now than at any point since Sebelius took office in 2002.
"We are pushing for this budget to pass in the Legislature," said Blake Shuart, legislative director of the Student Legislative Advisory Board. "Even if it does affect students' fees, it's a very good budget from the Governor."
If the budget passes in the Legislature, it will be a boost to a state besieged by financial troubles for the past three fiscal years.
"We're moving in the right direction," Eakin said. "It will take more time, but this is a good sign for the years to come."
- Edited by Robert Perkins
Bush justifies occupation; says America safe,secure
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Bush said Tuesday that Iraq undoubtedly posed a threat to America last year and the U.S.-led invasion was justified, despite his outgoing arms inspector's conclusion that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.
But Bush and his aides backed away from often-stated predictions that such weapons will eventually be found in Iraq.
And the president deflected questions about the discrepancies between his dire warnings on Iraq and former chief inspector David Kay's findings.
Bush an explanation.
"There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a grave and gathering threat to America and the world," Bush said. "And I say that based upon intelligence that I saw prior to the decision to go into Iraq and I say that based upon what I know today. And the world is better off without him."
Kay believes his team's failure to find banned weapons in Iraq points to problems in the intelligence suggesting they were there, and he said over the weekend that the CIA owes
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Porter Goss, said in an Associated Press interview Tuesday that Kay was doing a favor for the nation's intelligence system with his harsh criticism of the CIA's flawed prewar estimates.
Goss blamed the problem on underestimation of the fear and repression in Saddam's Iraq and insufficient intelligence budgets during the 1990s. He said the intelligence system needs more resources.
"I already knew it, but I know it in a more reinforced way now, and I figure Dr. Kay has done me a favor," Goss said.
Bush, during a meeting with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, said he had "great confidence in our intelligence community," and he displayed no interest in such an accounting from the CIA.
Last year, the president made Iraq's alleged weapons cache a
The president said he wanted to let American weapons inspectors complete their search in Iraq before drawing conclusions. That work is 85 percent complete, Kay has said.
central rationale for the Iraq invasion.
On Jan. 22, 2003, Bush told an audience in St. Louis. "The dictator of Iraq has got weapons of mass destruction." On the eve of the war in March, he said, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Sunday, after nine months of searching, Kaysaid, "I don't think they exist." Kay quit his post on Friday.
Bush cited other reasons Tuesday behind his decision to go to war, and he tried to direct Americans' attention to the future of Iraq, not his own past assertions.
"America is more secure, the world is safer, and the people of Iraq are free," Bush said.
"We're now at the business of making sure Iraq is free and democratic," Bush said. "That's important, as well, for long-term stability and peace in the world, and we're making good progress toward that goal."
Bush did not mention twin roadside bombings west of Baghdad that killed three American soldiers Tuesday.