2 - The Michigan Daily -- Friday, September 19, 2003 NATION/WORLD 41 U.S. unable to find smallpox stockpile in Iraq NEWS N BRIEF1 'he Associated Press harmless by U.N. inspectors, Iraqi scien- come nearly six months after the other aspects of the weapons hunt, said" Top American scientists assigned to tists deemed credible who gave no indi- administration went to war to disarm the officers who described the smallpox TIKRIT Iraq °;. the weapons hunt in Iraq found no evi- cation they had worked with smallpox Iraq of weapons of mass destruction pursuit for the first time. dence Saddam Hussein's regime was and a laboratory thought to be back in that Saddam long denied having and Though Team Pox is no longer opera-b ush outs iikr i u l s 3 sod iers making or stockpiling smallpox, The Associated Press has learned from sen- ior military officers involved in the search. Smallpox fears were part of the case the Bush administration used to build support for invading Iraq - and they were raised again as recently as last weekend by Vice President Dick Cheney. A three-month search by "Team Pox" turned up only signs to the contrary: dis- abled equipment that had been rendered use that was covered in cobwebs. Fears that smallpox could be used as a weapon led the Bush administra- tion to launch a vaccination campaign for some 500,000 U.S. military per- sonnel after the Sept. 11 attacks, and to order enough vaccine to inoculate the entire U.S. population if neces- sary. President Bush also was vacci- nated against the disease, which kills about a third of its victims. The negative smallpox findings reported to U.S. intelligence agencies the military hasn't been able to find. Smallpox was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. All samples of the virus were to have been destroyed except those held by spe- cial labs in Atlanta and Russia, but some experts fear Russian samples could have gotten into the hands of hostile nations. Two of the six members of Team Pox - whose existence and work hasn't been previously disclosed - have left Iraq while the rest remain involved in tional, having carried out their work between May and July, their findings don't dismiss the possibility that small- pox could still be discovered, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. However, there remains little to pursue in this area now. "We found no physical or new anecdotal evidence to suggest Iraq was producing smallpox or had stocks of it in its possession," one of the military officers said. Attackers ambushed a U.S. military patrol late yesterday, killing three Ameri- can soldiers and wounding two on the outskirts of Saddam Hussein's hometown. The assault near Tikrit came hours after insurgents ambushed two U.S. military convoys with remote-controlled bombs, opening a three-hour gunbattle in a volatile city 50 miles west of Baghdad. The U.S. military said two soldiers were wounded in the Khaldiyah ambush, the latest in a string of attacks that has raised questions about the Bush adminis- tration's handling of post-war Iraq. The three soldiers from the Army's 4th Infantry Division were killed when attackers opened fire with small arms in the village of Al-Ouja, just five miles south of the center of Tikrit, shortly before midnight yesterday, Lt. Col. William McDonald said. The two wounded soldiers were evacuated to a medical treatment facility and the names of those killed were withheld pending notification of next of kin, he said. The soldiers were part of a patrol investigating a suspected site used to launch rocket propelled grenades, or RPG's, at American military convoys. The weapons have been used to launch repeated attacks against the U.S. mil- itary in and around Tikrit. CAMP DAVID, Ms I Head of terror cell in Spain blamed for 9-11 MADRID, Spain (AP) - Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, a stocky, mid- dle-aged used-car salesman, was living in Madrid with his Spanish wife and four children when he was arrested two years ago and accused of directing an al-Qaida cell in Spain. He's still in prison, and now his legal troubles have deepened: a new indict- ment from Judge Baltasar Garzon accuses the Syrian-born Spaniard of helping plan the Sept. 11 attacks. Garzon's indictment names Yarkas and 34 others including al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Five other suspects were arrested yesterday on the judge's orders. Although they were not among the 35 named in the indictment, four were linked to people named in it. "What they're accusing him of makes no sense. The evidence is so flimsy," said Yarkas' wife, Maria Luisa Martin, speaking from her Madrid home, where she looks after the couple's children, who now number five, with another baby on the way. Soto del Real prison, where her 40-year-old husband is being held, allows conjugal visits. Garzon said he issued the indict- ment Wednesday because al-Qaida used Spain as a base to plot the Sept. 11 attacks. Many named in the indict- ment, like Yarkas, are already in Span- ish jails. The indictment details taped tele- phone conversations that Yarkas had shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks with a man known only as Shakur, who is also named in the indictment. Yarkas met him as a casual acquaintance in the United Arab Emirates in the mid- 1990s, Martin said. In one conversation, on Aug. 27, 2001, Shakur said that, among other things, "they had entered the area of aviation and had even slashed the throat of the bird," the indictment said. Yarkas and Shakur laughed during the exchange, the indictment said. The document also noted Yarkas' phone number was found in an address book at a Hamburg, Germany, apart- ment shared by accused Sept. 11 plot- ters who included Mohamed Atta, one e ec X. Sponsored 1y D.Amat's Restaura-t & Goodnite Grae Jazz & Marini Bar Cornerof Ist a.dJ Huron Siree DowtonAA (734) 623-7400 www.Jamatos.com T SHIR T PR INT ING LOWEST PRICES! HIGHEST QUALITY! FASTEST SERVICEI * 1002 PONTIAC TR. U 994-1367 of the suicide pilots. Martin insists Yarkas, whom she last visited two weeks ago, is innocent. "My husband does not know Mohamed Atta. He doesn't know that group. We didn't know about al-Qaida until Sept. 11," she said. Yarkas' lawyer, Jacobo Teijelo, said the taped conversations show his client knew nothing of a terrorist plot, adding that the phone number found in Ham- burg was from a previous home and eight years out of date. "In this country, it is a crime to be a radical Muslim. My client is innocent of the attacks in New York. He didn't incite anyone to make these attacks," Teijelo said. COMCAST Continued from Page 1 AT&T Broadband - making it the nation's largest cable company. This acquisition also made Comcast vir- tually the only cable and Internet service provider in Ann Arbor. "We have had issues in south Ann Arbor (which includes University property) because of outage prob- lems. There were software issues with a router that serves the area, but that was repaired at 5 a.m. (yes- terday) morning," Comcast spokesman, Mark Gilman said. "The issues we had, have nothing to do with the number of subscribers," he added. Gilman said that while Comcast does not usually release the total number of subscribers to the public, there have been a lot of people sub- scribing since the start of the new academic year. He said there has been tremendous growth in mid- Michigan, so growth in Ann Arbor most likely correlates with that. According to a U.S. Census Bureau report from 2000, the popu- lation in the city of Ann Arbor is 114,024, a 4 percent increase from the previous report in 1990. "I am not familiar with the prob- lems of individuals, but we have people who are more than willing to take care of any problems or con- cerns," Gilman said. While Comcast also provides a website resource for consumers, it does not address these issues, and many students do not feel that their problems are getting resolved. "I live on White Street, and I would say that we haven't had serv- ice 75 percent of the time in the past week. I have called Comcast several times, they sent the same technician out here twice and he says it is Comcast's fault and there is nothing he can do," Business School senior Niraj Patel said. LSA junior Jen Davison said, "The cable has been fine, but the Internet goes on and off at least once a day for an hour or so." Studentspalso complain about Comcast's prices. "Overall (Comcast) is okay, but the price is a little high," LSA jun- ior Pei-Yu Kao said. Comcast would not comment on the price increases (if any) from previous years. TiH ICIGEAN > < STAFF. WNT TO < Jo 0oN? REQUWRED., CLL, 76-DAILY. OR,., SWING WYAND SEE US 114 PERO: Bush urges Palestinians to turn from Arafat President Bush accused Yasser Arafat of undercutting chances for peace in the Middle East and told Palestinians they need a new leader committed to fighting terror if they hope to stop the cycle of violence with Israel. Three months after winning concessions that raised hopes for an end to Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed, Bush acknowledged yesterday that his cam- paign had stalled. He put the blame squarely on Arafat, referring to him as "the old order," and offered no criticism of Israel. Acknowledging frustration on another front, Bush also conceded he is unlikely to win a Security Council resolution on Iraq before he addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. The administration is seeking a measure to clear the way for additional peacekeeping troops and money from other countries to finance Iraq's reconstruction. "Reconstruction funds are never easy to come by, even in cases where everybody is completely united," said Bush's national security adviser, Con- doleezza Rice. WASHINGTON U.S. expects more weapons in N. Korea Some American intelligence analysts are becoming increasingly concerned that North Korea may have three, four or even six nuclear weapons instead of the one or two the CIA now estimates. \ Every new weapon would enhance North Korea's nuclear capability and give the country significantly more authority at the negotiating table, experts say. One or two nuclear weapons would be considered last-resort devices, because once used they could no longer deter a U.S. nuclear response. But a half-dozen would give North Korea the ability to strike and then be ready to strike again. In addition, if North Korea had weapons to spare, its leaders might be more willing to part with one, either in a test or by selling it. The leaders also could more easily afford to put one weapon on display at a missile launch site for US. spy satellites to see - to up the ante in negotiations. BASKING RIDGE, N.J. Trend in most U.S. hotels is smoke free Smokers are finding there is no room at the inn anymore. From New York to California, small and mid-size hotels have gone smoke- free, cleaning, deodorizing and redeco- rating rooms once reserved for smokers and designating them nonsmoking. One major reason is that fewer guests are requesting smoking rooms. But hotel managers point to other benefits: lower room maintenance costs and a marketing tool at a time when the business has been hurt by a sluggish economy. "Families with kids, it's attractive to them. It reinforces cleanliness and safe- ty" said Chris Canavos, manager Howard Johnson's in Williamsburg, Va., which went smoke-free during a renovation three years ago. NEW YORK Political candidates opt for prime time Forget newsmaker interviews with Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather. These days, candidates are more likely to trade barbs with Jay Leno or Oprah Winfrey, believing the more effec- tive route to voters is on entertain- ment shows rather than traditional news programs. Consider just one week on the campaign trail. John Edwards previews his presi- dential campaign kickoff on Come- dy Central's "The Daily Show." Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has shown some aversion to candidates' debates, talks to Winfrey about his bid for California governor. - Compiled from Daily wire reports. 4 04 WWW.MICHIGANDAILY.COM The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University of Michigan. 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