2 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 NATION/WORLD Rumsfeld: Don't politicize Iraqi army SALAHUDDIN, Iraq (AP) - On a whirlwind tour of Iraq that included his first visit to the Kurd- ish region, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged the emerging national government yesterday to avoid politicizing the Iraqi military. At a news conference in a shaded courtyard sur- rounded by young pear trees, Rumsfeld was asked whether Iraqi officials he met earlier in Baghdad had given him assurances about continuity in the senior leadership of the Iraqi security forces. "It's not so much a matter of continuity as a mat- ter of competence, of capability," he said in an appear- ance with Massoud Barzani, who has joined political forces with his former Kurdish rival, Jalal Talabani. "It's a matter of not causing undue turbulence in the Iraqi security forces and not setting back the important progress that's been achieved." Last week, Talabani was selected as president of the transitional government now being formed and will lead the country until constitutional elections scheduled for December. Some in the Bush admin- istration fear the new interim government will force out political rivals who have been working with U.S. officials since Iraq regained sovereignty last June. Rumsfeld said Washington hopes to see in the new government "highly competent people who are not going to politicize security forces" but will keep to the current strategy of maintaining a U.S. presence until Iraq's own forces are capable of defeating the insurgents. President Bush, meanwhile, visited with soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, and said the war in Iraq is "entering a new phase" as Iraqi security forces and government institutions become more capable and self-reliant. "America and its coalition partners are increasingly playing more of a supporting role," Bush said. "Like free people everywhere, Iraqis want to be defended .,A Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld congratulates troops at a town hall-style meeting at the 3rd Infantry Division dining facility at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq yesterday. and led by their own countrymen. We will help them achieve that objective so Iraqis can secure their own nation. And then our troops will come home with the honor they have earned." The president met privately with the families of 33 soldiers who were killed. Bush likened the April 9, 2003, toppling of Sad- dam Hussein's statue in Baghdad to the fall of the Berlin Wall, calling it "one of the great moments in the history of liberty." As is his practice on trips to Iraq, Rumsfeld held what he calls a "town hall-style" meeting with a few hundred soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division, the main U.S. force in Baghdad. He pinned Bronze Star medals and Purple Heart awards on several soldiers and participated in the re-enlistment of about 100 soldiers. ' The best-remembered Rumsfeld encounter with troops was his question-and-answer session last December with National Guard soldiers in Kuwait, many of whom were preparing to head to Iraq. WASHINGTON Three terrorism supporters indicted Three men have been indicted on charges they plotted to attack financial institu- tions in New York, New Jersey and Washington. A four-count indictment unsealed yesterday accuses Dhiran Barot, Nadeem Tarmohamrmed and Qaisar Shaffi of scouting the New York Stock Exchange and Citicorp Building in New York, the Prudential Building in Newark, N.J. and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in the District of Columbia. The three men, already in custody in England, were charged with three con- spiracy counts and providing material support to terrorists. "They are indicted here, and whether or not they actually ever are extradited here I guess is a matter of discussion," said New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "But I think it's important, both substantively and symbolically important, that you come here, you do this type of surveillance, we're not going to forget." U.S. officials claim that Barot is a senior al-Qaida figure, known variously as Abu Eisa al-Hindi, Abu Musa al-Hindi and Issa al-Britani, who scouted promi- nent financial targets in the United States at the behest of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. JE RUSALEM Tel-Aviv schools shut down in protest Activists chained shut dozens of schools yesterday to protest Israel's plans to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, and the army confined one Jewish extremist to his home until the pullout is complete. Activists shut 167 Tel Aviv-area schools and nursery schools, placing chains and small locks on the doors of the buildings from Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, to Her- zliya, an affluent coastal area north of the city, police spokesman Yossi Avendi said. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate all Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements this summer has drawn fierce opposition from Jewish settlers. The plan will uproot some 9,000 settlers from their homes. Settlers and their supporters repeatedly have taken to the streets since the plan was announced a year ago, holding mass demonstrations, forming a 55-mile human chain from the Gaza Strip to Jerusalem and even burning tires on several occasions to block main highways during rush hour. To deal with the security threat, Israel will train 10,000 soldiers to carry out the evacuation from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, a senior Israeli army officer said yesterday. ENNEPETAL, Germany Police save girls held hostage at knifepoint German police commandos slipped into a house where a knife-wielding man was holding four schoolgirls hostage yesterday, surprising the suspect and taking him into custody while rescuing his captives after a five-hour standoff. The man inflicted a superficial knife wound on the stomach of a 16-year-old hostage, whom he held with three Il-year-olds, before he was captured by a police SWAT team that entered the red brick house at the end of a cul-de-sac shortly after 6 p.m., lead investigator Ulrich Kuhne said. Police earlier said the suspect, identified as a 50-year-old Iranian asylum-seeker who has been in Germany since the 1990s, was injured as he was overpowered, but Kuhne gave no further details. Vatican City New Pope expected to face economic trouble The next pope will not only have to care for the souls of his 1.1 billion-mem- ber flock worldwide, but also the church's accounts, hit by the falling dollar, sex abuse settlements and a growing diplomatic mission. Like the chief executive of a worldwide corporation, John Paul II demanded financial accountability and promised greater transparency after years of secre- cy and even scandal. But in the last years of his papacy the Holy See was back in the red. In present- ing the latest accounting, the chief of the Holy See's economic affairs office cited Europe's sluggish economic recovery, poor investment climate and the rising strength of the euro against the dollar. v Dems question Bolton's conduct WASHINGTON (AP) - A former chief of the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research castigated John Bolton yesterday as a "kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy" who abused analysts who disagreed with him on Cuba. A Democrat said he "needs anger management." The pivotal Republican on the Sen- ate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, said he was "still inclined" to vote to con- firm Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The Constitution gives President Bush considerable leeway to name ambassadors and "I see the bar as very high" for rejecting his choices, Chafee told reporters after the hearing was adjourned. With Republicans in the major- ity, Bolton's nomination could clear the committee Thursday or early next week and go to the Senate with the committee's approval. Bolton's greater vulnerability is at the committee level because Republicans outnumber Demo- These packages do not include airfare. Taxes and other applicable fees are not included. I crats there only 10-8. They have a safer margin of strength in the Senate. Democrats have insisted that Bolton's mistreatment of lower-level officials who would not bend to his hard-line views was underscored by Carl W. Ford Jr., who appeared voluntarily as a witness to support the accusations of harassment. "I have never seen anyone quite like Mr. Bolton," Ford testified under oath. "He abuses his authority with little people." Contradicting Bolton's assertion Mon- day that he never tried to have officials who disagreed with him discharged, Ford charged that Bolton tried to sack the analyst, Christian Westermann, and that Bolton was a "serial abuser." "If this isn't enough I don't know what you can do" to derail the Bolton nomina- tion, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said in an interview afterward. He said "a whole slew" of officials could have been sum- moned to make similar accusations. Dodd said he had not been told by any Republican that he would oppose confirmation. The chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) said the "paramount issue" was giving President Bush the nominee he wants to undertake reform at the United Nations. "Bluntness may not be very good diplomacy, but on occasion it may be required," Lugar said as the hearing drew to a close. Sen. Joseph F. Biden, Jr. (D-Del.) who is leading the fight to block the nomina- tion, responded angrily to the accusa- tion of mistreatment. Anytime a senior official calls in a lower-level one "and reams him a new one," he said, "that's just not acceptable." Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said it was not an isolated incident, that Bolton had harassed at least three officials who disagreed with the extent of threats he saw posed by Cuba and other countries. Calling Bolton a "bully," Boxer said, "I think Mr. Bolton needs anger man- agement at a minimum and he does not deserve to be promoted" to the U.N. post. Chafee noted calmly that analysts crit- icized by Bolton had "kept their jobs." And. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) noting Ford had not witnessed the inci- dent involving Westermann, said much of the testimony would not be admis- sible in a court of law. Ford told the committee he considered himself a loyal Republican, a conservative and a strong supporter of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Ford said he appeared before the committee only after a lot of "soul-searching." On Monday, Bolton rigorously rejected assertions by Democrats that he tried to sack State Department intel- ligence officials who challenged his assessment of Cuba's efforts to develop biological weapons and his appraisal of the weapons programs of Iran and other countries. "I didn't seek to have these people fired. I didn't seek to have them dis- charged. I said I lost my trust in them," Bolton testified. Bolton also assured the committee that he supports international law and views the United Nations as "an impor- tant component of our diplomacy." The 56-year-old State Department chief of arms control is a hard-liner with a skep- - Compiled from Daily wire reports -I 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. 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