2 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, October 14, 2005 NATION/WORLD Iraq tense as referendum nears NEWS IN BRIEF 40 BAGHDAD (AP) - Hundreds of Iraqi police and army troops fanned out across Baghdad yesterday, setting up checkpoints and fortifying polling stations with barbed wire and blast barriers two days ahead of a historic constitutional referendum. From the city's Shiite stronghold of Kazimiyah to its southern approach- es in the notorious "Triangle of Death," the capital's usually chaotic traffic was down to a tiny fraction. Many stores didn't bother to open and others shuttered early ahead of a 10 p.m. curfew. By nightfall, Baghdad's streets were almost emptied of civilians. The large army and police presence, combined with the scarcity of people and vehicles, gave the city a disquieting calm. Similar security precautions were in place across much of Iraq in antici- pation of a spike in attacks by insurgents who want to derail the political process. Nearly 450 people have been killed in violence over the past 18 days. Even with no people on the streets, sharp divisio-s over the referen- dum were visible in Baghdad. Hundreds of posters and banners urging a "yes" vote were plastered on virtually every wall and shop window in the Shiite district of Kazimiyah. Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has ordered his fol- lowers to approve the constitution. In contrast, not a single referendum poster was visible in the Sunni dis- trict of Azamiyah, just across the Tigris River. A banner by the Sunni Arab Iraqi Islamic Party urging a "no" vote was removed from where it hung a day earlier outside Azamiyah's Grand Imam mosque. The party changed its stance after Sunni, Shiite and Kurd- ish lawmakers agreed Wednesday to several amendments to the document designed to win Sunni Arab support in Saturday's vote. Still, no new "yes" banner was on display in the district. Many other Sunni Arab parties still oppose the charter. In the so-called Triangle of Death, a mainly Sunni area known for kidnappings and killings, there was no sign of posters either. Iraqi troops searched cars under the watchful eyes of comrades manning machine-gun positions. U.S. helicopters hovered over the area. Traffic on the road through the "triangle" was thin. "I will vote 'yes' so as to isolate the troublemakers," said Faisal Galab, a Sunni Arab sheik from the town of Youssifiyah, about 12 miles south of Baghdad. "I have asked my family and clan to vote 'yes."' U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch provided an upbeat assessment of the security situation ahead of the vote, arguing that the insur- gent danger was far less than on the eve of the Jan. 30 parliamentary elec- tion. Also, Iraq's security forces total 200,000 now, compared to 138,000 in January, Lynch said. *1.. f K' k ib. G {+. ECa' .. .. . . ' ' v . e5. " h\;.,..... Y.A. "in.. NALC I, Russia Chechen rebel attack kills at least 85 Militants attacked police and government buildings in Russia's volatile Caucasus region yesterday, taking hostages and turning a provincial capital into a war zone wracked by gunfire and explosions that left at least 85 people dead, mostly insurgents. Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the offensive in Nalchik, the capital of the mostly Muslim republic of Kabardino-Balkariya, as a new front opened in the Kremlin's decade-old battle against Islamic insurgents. The rebels' struggle against Russia, which was originally a separatist movement, increasingly has melded with Islamic extremism in the past decade and fanned out beyond Chechnya's borders to encompass the entire Caucusus region. The insurgent strategy of simultaneous attacks on facilities in Nalchik, a city of 235,000, was similar to a rebel siege last year in another Caucasus republic, Ingushetia, in what appears to be an attempt to target areas outside Chechnya and keep Moscow off-balance. Kabardino-Balkariya is the fifth of seven republics in the mountainous region to be hit by the spillover of violence from the struggle in Chechnya. AP PHOTO Iraqi border guards patrol at the Safwan border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait yesterday. Iraq closed the border crossing point as a security precaution ahead of this weekend's referendum on the new constitution. Bush's talk with troops carefully scripted WASHINGTON (AP) - It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions President Bush asked on a teleconference call yesterday were cho- reographed to match his goals for the war in Iraq and Saturday's vote on a new Iraqi constitution. "This is an important time," Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secre- tary, said, coaching the soldiers before Bush arrived. "The president is looking forward to having just a conversation with you." Barber said the president was inter- ested in three topics: the overall security situation in Iraq, security preparations for the weekend vote and efforts to train Iraqi troops. As she spoke in Washington, a live shot of 10 soldiers from the Army's 42nd Infantry Division and one Iraqi soldier was beamed into the Eisenhower Execu- tive Office Building from Tikrit - the birthplace of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. "I'm going to-ask somebody to grab those two water bottles against the wall and move them out of the camera shot for me," Barber said. A brief rehearsal ensued. "OK, so let's just walk through this," Barber said. "Captain Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?" "Captain Smith," Kennedy said. "Captain. Smith? You take the mike and you hand it to whom?" she asked. "Captain Kennedy," the soldier replied. And so it went. "If the question comes up about part- nering - how often do we train with the Iraqi military - who does he go to?" Barber asked. "That's going to go to Captain Pratt," one of the soldiers said. "And then if we're going to talk a little bit about the folks in Tikrit - the home- town - and how they're handling the political process, who are we going to give that to?" she asked. Before he took questions, Bush thanked the soldiers for serving and reassured them that the U.S. would not pull out of Iraq until the mission was complete. "So long as I'm the president, we're never going to back down, we're never going to give in, we'll never accept any- thing less than total victory," Bush said. The president told them twice that the American people were behind them. "You've got tremendous support here at home," Bush said. Less than 40 percent in an AP-Ipsos poll taken in October said they approved of the way Bush was handling Iraq. Just over half of the public now say the Iraq war was a mistake. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday's event was coordinated with the Defense Depart- ment but that the troops were expressing their own thoughts. With satellite feeds, coordination often is needed to over- come technological challenges, such as delays, he said. "I think all they were doing was talk- ing to the troops and letting them know what to expect," he said, adding that the president wanted to talk with troops on the ground who have firsthand knowl- edge about the situation. The soldiers all gave Bush an upbeat view of the situation. The president also got praise from the Iraqi soldier who was part of the chat. "Thank you very much for every- thing," he gushed. "I like you." On preparations for the vote, 1st Lt. Gregg Murphy of Tennessee said: "Sir, we are prepared to do whatever it takes to make this thing a success. ... Back in January, when we were preparing for that election, we had to lead the way.... We're really happy to see, during the preparation for this one, sir, they're doing everything." On the training of Iraqi security forc- es, Master Sgt. Corine Lombardo from Scotia, N.Y., said to Bush: "I can tell you over the past 10 months, we've seen a tremendous increase in the capabilities and the confidences of our Iraqi security force partners. ... Over the next month, we anticipate seeing at least one-third of those Iraqi forces conducting indepen- dent operations." MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan U.N. urges faster aid to quake survivors With snow falling on parts of Kashmir, the U.N.'s emergency relief chief said yesterday that time was running out for many hungry, homeless survivors of a mas- sive earthquake and urged aid agencies to speed up efforts in remote villages. The plea came as aid workers struggled to reach remote areas and hours after an aftershock jolted parts of Pakistan, panicking people who had sur- vived last weekend's devastating temblor and forcing a rescue team to suspend efforts to save a trapped woman. She died before the rescuers returned to the precarious rubble. U.N. Undersecretary General and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland flew by helicopter to the hard-hit Kashmiri city of Muzaffarabad, where he said there was an urgent need to get food, medicine, shelter and blankets to millions of people. The U.N. estimates 2 million people are homeless ahead of the fierce winter in the Himalayan region. The death toll was believed to be more than 35,000 and tens of thousands were injured. India has reported more than 1,350 deaths in the part of Kashmir that it controls. WASHINGTON Bush proposal could allow more polluting The Bush administration proposed new regulations Thursday that could allow the nation's dirtiest power plants to release more air pollutants each year - and possibly undercut lawsuits aimed at forcing companies to comply with the Clean Air Act. The proposal follows a June federal court ruling that said power plants can throw more pollutants into the air each year when they modernize to operate for longer hours. It's the latest in a series of attempts by the Environmental Protection Agency to make the nearly 30-year-old Clean Air Act rules for coal-fired power plants more industry-friendly. Some changes were held up by lawsuits from environ- mentalists and state officials. "We are now doing to smokestacks what we did to tailpipes," said EPA Admin- istrator Stephen Johnson, who predicted the regulations would spur greater tech- nology innovation. - Compiled from Daily wire reports CORRECTIONS A viewpoint (Dream On) in Wednesday's edition of the Daily misspelled the name ofsan MSA representative. He is Melton Lee. The cover story (MSA wants you) in yesterday's edition of The Statement, incorrectly called Melton Lee a former MSA representative. Lee is currently a representative. Please report any errors in the Daily to corrections@michigandaily.com. 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com 0 0 JASON Z. 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