2 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, February 18, 2005 NATION/WORLD Bush names new intelligence chief NEWS IN BRIEF WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush named John Negroponte, the U.S. ambas- sador to Iraq, as the government's first national intelligence director yesterday, turning to a veteran diplomat to revive a spy community besieged by criticism after the Sept. 11 attacks. Ending a nine-week search, Bush chose Negroponte, who has been in Iraq for less than a year, for the difficult job of imple- menting the most sweeping intelligence overhaul in 50 years. Negroponte, 65, is tasked with bring- ing together 15 highly competitive spy agencies and learning to work with the combative Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the brand new CIA Director Porter Goss and other intelligence leaders. He'll oversee a covert intelligence budget estimated at $40 billion. Negroponte, a former ambassador to the United Nations and to a number of coun- tries, called the job his "most challenging assignment" in more than 40 years of gov- ernment work. He was widely believed not to have been the first choice, but Bush officials denied the presi- dent had had trouble filling the position. If confirmed by the Senate, as expected, Negroponte said he planned "reform of the intelligence community in ways designed to best meet the intelligence needs of the 21st century." Bush signaled that he sees Negroponte as the man to steer his intelligence clearing- house. "If we're going to stop the terrorists before they strike, we must ensure that our intelligence agencies work as a single, uni- fied enterprise," Bush said. Negroponte will have coveted time with the president during daily intelli- gence briefings and will have authority over the spy community's intelligence collection priorities. Perhaps most impor- tantly, Bush made clear that Negropontej will set budgets for the national intelli- gence agencies. "People who control the money, people who have access to the president generally have a lot of influence," Bush said. "And that's why John Negroponte is going to have a lot of influence." Bush also announced he had chosen an intelligence insider to serve as Negropon- te's deputy, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, the National Security Agency's director since 1999. As the longest-serving head of the secretive codebreaking and eavesdrop- ping agency, Hayden pushed for change by asking some longtime personnel to retire and increasing reliance on technol- ogy contractors. - - 7.1 1 - BAGHDAD, Iraq Shittes win slim majority in assembly A Shiite alliance won a slim majority in Iraq's new National Assembly, accord- ing to certified election returns announced yesterday, but it may take weeks to form a government. Meanwhile, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi cautioned against excluding all of Saddam Hussein's supporters. Because a two-thirds majority in the 275-member parliament, or 182 seats, is required for confirming the top positions in the new government, the United Iraqi Alliance will have to make deals with the other parties. The alliance won 140 seats, while Kurdish parties got 75, secular Shiites took 40 and nine smaller parties shared 20, the final returns of the Jan. 30 elections showed. Shiite and Kurdish leaders have already agreed that they must reach out to prominent Sunnis to participate in the government if they want it to be considered legitimate among Sunnis and to have any hope of ending the country's largely Sunni-led insurgency. The Sunni-led Iraqis Party won only five seats in parliament, because many Sunni Arabs avoided the elections - either out of fear of violence or to support a boycott call by radical clerics opposed to the U.S. military. 41 WASHINGTON Class-action lawsuit limit bill sent to Bush President Bush, left, walks in with John Negroponte, right, to announce Negroponte's nomination as intelligence director. Israel ends collective punishment policy S2,400 Palestinian homes have been razed due to the strategy JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's defense minister ordered a halt yesterday to the controversial policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinian suicide bomb- ers and gunmen after an internal army review concluded it has not deterred attackers but has inflamed hatred. Since the 1967 Middle East War, Israel has razed more than 2,400 Palestinian homes as punishment or deterrence - leaving thousands of people homeless - including 675 houses destroyed in the past four years of fighting, according to the Israeli human rights group B'tselem. Human rights groups have con- demned the demolitions as collective punishment and a violation of inter- national law, and long have demanded that they be halted. The army review found the prac- tice has inflamed hatred. The Haaretz newspaper said there were no more than 20 cases in which the threat of demolition deterred attackers or pushed their families to turn them in. Militant groups compensate families of attackers and help them rebuild, weakening possible deterrence. House demolitions, along with other army practices, such as targeted killings of Palestinian militants, were suspended after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sha- ron and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas declared a truce last week. In announcing the halt to house demolitions, the military said in a statement that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz decided to accept the recom- mendation of army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon to "stop exercising the legal right to demolish terrorists' houses as a means of deterrence." A military official said that while the, practice had a deterrent effect in some cases, the army "weighed if the deterrent was strong enough in order to continue the policy of the demolition of houses, and the chief of staff ... concluded espe- cially when there's more quiet, it's not the time to use this policy." B'tselem says the Israeli military has destroyed a total of more than 4,000 Palestinian homes during the current conflict, most in operations to clear away buildings used by militants as cover for attacks or to widen security roads. Those practices were not includ- ed in Thursday's decision. Congress sent President Bush legislation yesterday aimed at discouraging multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuits by having federal judges take them away from state courts, a victory for conservatives who hope it will lead to other lawsuit limits. The legislation the House passed 279-149 is the first of Bush's 2005 legisla- tive priorities to win congressional approval. The Senate voted 72-26 for the bill Feb. 10. The president has described class-action suits as often frivolous, and businesses complain that state judges and juries have been too generous to plaintiffs. "This bill is an important step forward in our efforts to reform the litiga- tion system and to continue creating jobs and growing our economy," said Bush, who is expected to sign the bill today. But Democrats say the legislation is aimed at protecting GOP business donors and hurting trial lawyers, a traditional part of their base. They also warn that Republican changes to the legal system will only make it harder for people to sue over injuries caused by corporations. BEIJING China to send envoy to N. Korea to revive talks China said yesterday it will send a top communist party official to North Korea for talks with its longtime ally in an effort to break a stalemate over the North's nuclear program, but Beijing urged patience in its dealing with the volatile country. U.S. and South Korean envoys visited Beijing to seek help in persuading the iso- lated North to rejoin six-nation nuclear talks that were suspended in June. Those talks include the United States, the two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan. China, the North's biggest backer and a major source of aid to the impoverished country, has been wary of openly testing its influence with Pyongyang. China urged patience with the unpredictable North, which has rejected calls to return to the six-nation talks, accusing Washington of hostility. Last week, Pyongyang announced it has produced nuclear weapons. a0 A Iran calls for IslamIc front to stop threats WASHINGTON ront o stp tneatsLawmakers question new vision of NASA Z TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran warned that any strike on its nuclear facili- ties would draw a swift and crushing response and called yestereday for an expansion of its newly emerging stra- tegic alliance with Syria to create a powerful united Islamic front that could confront Washington and Israel. Such an expansion appears unlikely to go far, because many key Arab states - Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia - are close Washington allies and have long been suspicious of Iran's Shiite Muslim clerical regime. Still, the statements were another sign of the tense situation, coming a day after Syria and Iran declared they would form a united front against any threats, and a mysterious explosion near a nuclear facility in southwestern Iran that initially was reported as a missile strike but later was attributed to con- struction work on a dam. Iran's overtures to other Muslim coun- tries in the Mideast reflect its concern about U.S. pressure to drop all its nuclear ambitions. With Syria under similarly strong American scrutiny - in its case for its role in Lebanon and as an alleged sponsor of terrorism - the two nations are trying to diminish Washington's efforts to isolate them. The Bush administration has so far applied only diplomatic pressure, but has talked tough. President Bush has labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil" with North Korea and prewar Iraq. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Feb. 4 that a military strike against Iran was "not on the agenda at this point," but Bush has said he would not rule out any option. Bush said yesterday the United States would support Israel "if her security is threatened." Israel has warned that it may consid- er a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear installations along the lines of its 1981 bombing of an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad. The United States accuses Iran of having a secret program to make nuclear weap- ons; Iran insists its nuclear activities are for peaceful energy purposes. Lawmakers cast doubts yesterday about the Bush administration's decision to steer NASA toward lunar and planetary exploration while cutting back on some of the space agency's science projects, such as the Hubble telescope. "Congress has never endorsed, in fact has never discussed, the vision," House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, (R-N.Y.), said in reference to President Bush's January 2004 declaration that the United States would return humans to the moon in the next 10 to 15 years and ultimately launch manned flights to Mars and beyond. - Compiled from Daily wire reports 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. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily's office for $2. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110. Winter term (January through April) is $115, yearlong (September through April) is $195. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid. 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