2 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, March 21, 2006
NATION/WORLD
Cyclone slams
Australian coast
NEWS IN BRIEF
HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WOR
Officials said they used
lessons from Hurricane
Katrina to plan evacuations
and disaster relief
CAIRNS, Australia (AP) - Metal
roofs littered streets, wooden houses
lay in splinters and banana plantations
were stripped bare after the most pow-
erful cyclone to hit Australia in three
decades lashed the country's eastern
coast yesterday.
Amazingly, the storm caused no
reported fatalities, and only 30 people
suffered minor injuries. But the dam-
age from Cyclone Larry, a Category 5
storm with winds up to 180 mph, was
expected to run into the hundreds of
millions of dollars.
Hardest hit was Innisfail, a farming
city of 8,500 people 60 miles south of
the tourist city of Cairns in northeastern
Queensland state.
"It looks like an atomic bomb hit the
place," Innisfail mayor Neil Clarke told
Australian television. "It is severe dam-
age. This is more than a local disaster,
this is a national disaster"
The town urgently needs accommoda-
tion for people whose homes were dam-
aged, a power supply to feed hospitals and
other infrastructure, he said.
There was no official count of the
homeless yesterday, but given the number
of homes badly damaged, the figure could
run into the thousands, Clarke said.
The casualty toll was so low because
people left town or went to shelters
after authorities posted warnings. Resi-
dents and officials were mindful of the
damage Hurricane Katrina did to New
Orleans and Mississippi last August,
said Ben Creagh, a spokesman for
Queensland state Department of Emer-
gency Services.
"Everyone here studied Katrina and
took a lot of messages away, a lot of
lessons at the expense of the poor old
Yanks;" Creagh said. "There was abso-
lutely no complacency at the planning
level at all, and I think that shows....
Good planning, a bit of luck - we've
dodged a bullet."
Within hours of the storm's landfall,
officials declared a state of emergency,
prepared Black Hawk helicopters to run
rescue missions and announced cash pay-
outs for victims - $720 for each adult
and $290 for each child who lost their
home. Prime Minister John Howard indi-
cated more aid was to come.
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie
said 55 percent of homes in Innisfail
had been damaged, though rescue teams
had yet to get full access to the swamped
region. All roads into the town remained
blocked late yesterday.
Innisfail Barrier Reef Motel owner
Amanda Fitzpatrick echoed the mayor's
damage assessment.
CLEVELAND
Bush urges critics to look at progress
President Bush cited success in stabilizing an insurgent stronghold in northern
Iraq yesterday, saying he has "confidence in our strategy" and critics should look
beyond the images of violence to see clear signs of progress.
Bush tried a new tactic to boost sagging support for the war, relating to his audience
in Cleveland a lengthy story about a campaign to rid the northern city of Tal Afar of ter-
rorism against civilians. Success there "gives reason for hope for a free Iraq," he said.
Bush described how the insurgents who have been using murder and intimida-
tion to run roughshod over the city now have been killed or captured by Iraqi forces
and coalition troops working together.
The president's detailed description of the campaign - and the eventual success
story - was meant to underscore another point the White House is trying to make:
evidence of progress is more difficult than daily bombings and deaths to capture
in media sound bites.
MINSK, nlput
Citizens in Belarus continue to protest election
AP-'PHOTOI
Covered in blood, Kate Charleston stands outside her home in Innisfail,
Australia, from which she narrowly escaped yesterday.
"We could only go out in the eye of the
storm and have a look and it just looks like
an atomic bomb has gone off;" she told
Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Farmers were expected to be
among the hardest hit. The region is
a major growing region for bananas
and sugar cane, and vast tracts of the
crops were flattened.
"It looks like someone's gone in there
with a slasher and slashed the top off
everything;' said Bill Horsford, a cane
farmer. One lawmaker estimated lost rev-
enues could run to $110 million.
The storm also barreled over a portion
of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, damag-
ing a narrow band of coral, said David
Wachenfeld, director of science at the
government body that cares for the reef.
The reef is more than 1,240 miles
long, and the affected area is only
about 30 miles across and far from the
places where nearly 2 million tourists a
year gaze in awe at the coral's vibrant
colors and fish life, he said.
It would take 10 to 20 years for new
coral to grow and replace the damaged
area, he said.
The storm was the most powerful to
hit Australia since Christmas Eve 1974,
when Cyclone Tracy destroyed the north-
ern city of Darwin, killing 65 people.
A man who answered the phone at an
Innisfail evacuation center late yesterday
said it was too soon to estimate the num-
ber of people who lost their homes.
Do new bases hint at a longer stay in Iraq?
The U.S. recently built a heli-park,
a large base complete with a Burger
King and Pizza Hut and is planning a
6,000 person mess hall
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AP) - The concrete
goes on forever, vanishing into the noonday glare, 2
million cubic feet of it, a mile-long slab that's now
the home of up to 120 U.S. helicopters, a "heli-park"
as good as any back in the States.
At another giant base, al-Asad in Iraq's western
desert, the 17,000 troops and workers come and
go in a kind of bustling American town, with a
Burger King, Pizza Hut and a car dealership, stop
signs, traffic regulations and young bikers clog-
ging the roads.
At a third hub down south, Tallil, they're planning
a new mess hall, one that will seat 6,000 hungry air-
men and soldiers for chow.
Are the Americans here to stay? Air Force
mechanic Josh Remy is sure of it as he looks
around Balad.
"I think we'll be here forever" the 19-year-old air-
man from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., told a visitor to his base.
The Iraqi people suspect the same. Strong majori-
ties tell pollsters they'd like to see a timetable for
U.S. troops to leave, but believe Washington plans to
keep military bases in their country.
The question of America's future in Iraq looms
larger as the U.S. military enters the fourth year of
its war here, waged first to oust President Saddam
Hussein, and now to crush an Iraqi insurgency.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, interim prime minister, has said
he opposes permanent foreign bases. A wide range of
American opinion is against them as well. Such bases
would be a "stupid" provocation, says Gen. Anthony
Zinni, former U.S. Mideast commander and a critic
of the original U.S. invasion.
But events, in explosive situations like Iraq's, can
turn "no" into "maybe" and even "yes."
The Shiite Muslims, ascendant in Baghdad,
might decide they need long-term U.S. protection
against insurgent Sunni Muslims. Washington
might take the political risks to gain a strategic
edge - in its confrontation with next-door Iran,
for example.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad,
and other U.S. officials disavow any desire for per-
manent bases. But long-term access, as at other U.S.
bases abroad, is different from "permanent," and the
official U.S. position is carefully worded.
Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman
on international security, told The Associated Press
it would be "inappropriate" to discuss future basing
until a new Iraqi government is in place, expected in
the coming weeks.
Less formally, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, asked about "permanent duty stations" by
a Marine during an Iraq visit in December, allowed
that it was "an interesting question." He said it would
have to be raised by the incoming Baghdad govern-
ment, if "they have an interest in our assisting them
for some period over time."
In Washington, Iraq scholar Phebe Marr finds
the language intriguing. "If they aren't planning for
bases, they ought to say so," she said. "I would expect
to hear 'No bases."'
Right now what is heard is the pouring of concrete.
In 2005-06, Washington has authorized or pro-
posed almost $1 billion for U.S. military construc-
tion in Iraq, as American forces consolidate at Balad,
known as Anaconda, and a handful of other installa-
tions, big bases under the old regime.
They have already pulled out of 34 of the 110 bases
they were holding last March, said Maj. Lee English
of the U.S. command's Base Working Group, plan-
ning the consolidation.
"The coalition forces are moving outside the cities
while continuing to provide security support to the
Iraqi security forces," English said.
The move away from cities, perhaps eventually
accompanied by U.S. force reductions, will lower the
profile of U.S. troops, frequent targets of roadside
bombs on city streets. Officers at Al-Asad Air Base, 10
desert miles from the nearest town, say it hasn't been
hit by insurgent mortar or rocket fire since October.
Al-Asad will become even more isolated. The pro-
posed 2006 supplemental budget for Iraq operations
would provide $7.4 million to extend the no-man's-land
and build new security fencing around the base, which
at 19 square miles is so large that many assigned there
take the Yellow or Blue bus routes to get around the
base, or buy bicycles at a PX jammed with customers.
The latest budget also allots $39 million for new
airfield lighting, air traffic control systems and
upgrades allowing al-Asad to plug into the Iraqi elec-
tricity grid - a typical sign of a long-term base.
At Tallil, besides the new $14 million dining facil-
ity, Ali Air Base is to get, for $22 million, a double
perimeter security fence with high-tech gate controls,
guard towers and a moat - in military parlance, a
"vehicle entrapment ditch with berm."
Here at Balad, the former Iraqi air force academy
40 miles north of Baghdad, the two 12,000-foot
runways have become the logistics hub for all U.S.
military operations in Iraq, and major upgrades
began last year.
Army engineers say 31,000 truckloads of sand and
gravel fed nine concrete-mixing plants on Balad, as
contractors laid a $16 million ramp to park the Air
Force's huge C-5 cargo planes; an $18 million ramp
for workhorse C-130 transports; and the vast, $28
million main helicopter ramp, the length of 13 foot-
ball fields, filled with attack, transport and recon-
naissance helicopters.
Turkish builders are pouring tons more concrete
for a fourth ramp beside the runways, for medical-
evacuation and other aircraft on alert. And $25 mil-
lion was approved for other "pavement projects,"
from a special road for munitions trucks to a com-
pound for special forces.
Thousands of opposition supporters gathered in the center of the Belarus' capital
yesterday for a second night, hoping their protest would help overturn a presidential
election that the U.S. said was flawed by a "climate of fear."
Their numbers were smaller than on election night, and prospects for a Ukraine-
style "Orange Revolution" seemed remote. But with overnight temperatures at 28
degrees Fahrenheit, protesters set up a dozen small tents and vowed to turn the
demonstration into a round-the-clock presence.
The small but assertive move could rally others to the cause. But it could also
prove unacceptable to authorities. Officials put on a show of force, with busloads
of riot police fanning out into nearby streets and courtyards and preventing people
from approaching the main square.
Police had only a small and unobtrusive presence at the protest the previous
night, when an estimated 10,000 people braved the freezing cold and snow to regis-
ter their outrage after authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko was declared
the overwhelming winner of Sunday's elections.
LONDON
Testimony ends in 'Da Vinci Code' trial
Arguments closed in "The Da Vinci Code" copyright case with the lawyer
for the men suing the publisher of the blockbuster novel suggesting that author
Dan Brown's testimony was unreliable and questioning why his wife, who helped
research the best seller, did not testify.
Jonathan Rayner James, whose clients say Brown stole their ideas for his huge best
seller, said Monday that the novelist's testimony should be treated with "deep suspicion."
He also asked why Brown's wife, Blythe, who did much of the research for the
book, was not called as a witness in the copyright-infringement case. Michael
Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing "Da Vinci Code" publisher Random House,
claiming Brown's book "appropriated the architecture" of their 1982 nonfiction
book, "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail."
BAGHDAD
Residents say U.S. Marines killed 15 civilians
Residents gave new details yesterday about the shootings of civilians in a western
Iraqi town, where the U.S. military is investigating allegations of potential miscon-
duct by American troops last November.
The residents said troops entered homes and shot and killed 15 members of two
families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.
The military, which announced Friday that a dozen Marines are under investigation
for possible war crimes in the Nov. 19 incident, said in a statement yesterday that a vid-
eotape of the aftermath of the shootings in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad,
was presented in support of the allegations.
- Compiled from Daily wire reports
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