2A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, March 27, 2006 NATION/WORLD- Marines on body armor: Thanks, but no thanks TO some, extra 5 pounds of armor not worth additional safety HUSAYBAH, Iraq (AP) - Extra body armor - the lack of which caused a political storm in the United States - has flooded in to Iraq, but many Marines here promptly stuck it in lockers or under bunks. Too heavy and cumbersome, many say. Marines already carry loads as heavy as 70 pounds when they patrol the dangerous streets in towns and vil- lages in restive Anbar province. The new armor plates, while only about five pounds each, are not worth carry- ing for the additional safety they are said to provide, some say. "We have to climb over walls and go through windows," said Sgt. Justin Shank of Greencastle, Pa. "I under- stand the more armor, the safer you are. But it makes you slower. People don't understand that this is combat and people are going to die." Staff Sgt. Thomas Bain of Buffalo, N.Y., shared concerns about the extra pounds. "Before you know it, they're going to get us injured because we're haul- ing too much weight and don't have enough mobility to maneuver in a fight from house to house," said Bain, who is assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment. "I think we're start- ing to go overboard on the armor." Since the insurgency erupted in Iraq, the Pentagon has been criticized for supplying insufficient armor for Hum- vees and too few bulletproof vests. In one remarkableincident, soldiers pub- licly confronted Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the problem on live television. Hometown groups across the United States have since raised money to send extra armor to troops, and the Penta- gon, under congressional pressure, launched a program last October to reimburse troops who had purchased armor with their own money. Soldiers and their parents spent hun- dreds, sometimes thousand of dollars, on armor until the Pentagon began issuing the new protective gear. In Bain's platoon of about 35 men, Marines said only three or four wore the plates after commanders distribut- ed them last month and told them that use was optional. Top military officials, including Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey, acknowledge the concerns over weight and mobility but have urged that the new gear be mandatory. "That's going to add weight, of course," said Harvey. "You've read where certain soldiers aren't happy about that. But we think it's in their best interest to do this." Marines have shown a special aver- sion to the new plates because they tend to patrol on foot, sometimes conducting two patrols each day that last several hours. They feel the extra weight. NEWS IN BRIEF WASHINGTON Report: Russians fed intel to Saddam k Iraqi documents captured by U.S. forces in 2003 say Russian intelligence had sources inside the American military that enabled it to feed information about U.S. troop movements and battle plans to Saddam Hussein. The unclassified report does not assess the value or accuracy of the information Sad- dam got or offer details on Russia's information pipeline. It cites captured Iraqi docu- ments that say the Russians had "sources inside the American Central Command" and that intelligence was passed to Saddam through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad. Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia's U.N. mission in New York, said the allegations were false. "To my mind, from my understanding it's absolutely nonsense and it's ridicu- lous,' she said, adding that the U.S. government had not shown Russia the evidence cited in the report. "Somebody wants to say something, and did - and there is no evidence to prove it." v ~KIEV, Ukraine Exit olls show pro-Russian party in lead A pro-Russia party won the largest chunk of votes in Ukraine's parliamentary {4,elections yesterday, two nationwide exit polls indicated, dealing a stinging rebuke to - President Viktor Yushchenko's West-leaning administration. Polling stations shut after 15 hours, but voters who had waited in long lines and managed to get inside before the official closing time were allowed to cast ballots, choosing from more than 45 parties that sought seats in the 450-member parliament. One exit poll said 33 percent of votes had gone to the Party of the Regions led by Viktor Yanukovych, a Kremlin ally who lost to Yushchenko in the 2004 presidential election forced by the Orange Revolution street protests. AP PHOTO The poll, by Democratic Initiatives, International Institute of Sociology and Abdul Rahman, an Afghan man who converted from Islam to Christianity, is Razumkov Center, said former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc was second interviewed during a hearing in Kabul on March 16. Rahman, who faced a possible with about 23 percent and Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party was third at under 14 death sentence for converting from Islam to Christianity, Is expected to be freed. percent. DAKAR, Senegal Blacklist highlights trouble in African skies C h n st an Co ~ e(Citinc efat nn-n th E7rn U nin bnnr dQ9 ailin Wdrne 0 6 0 case dismissed 'Class of Katrina' shares final dance Despite ravages of hurricane, prom goes on at Gulf Coast schools PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (AP) - Wearing a canary yellow strapless evening gown, Jessica Jenkins walked across the remains of her home, rais- ing her petticoat to keep it out of the red clay. Prom season holds a special impor- tance for Jenkins and other Gulf Coast students whose last year of high school was defined by Hurricane Katrina. "The littlest things get to you now," said Jenkins, who was named the prom queen Saturday. "Things that you would never have thought would bother you before the storm, bother you now." Next to the site of her old home, where their new house is under con- struction, Jenkins and older sister Leah share a trailer supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Her parents and younger sis- ter Brett live in an adjacent trailer. At one time, they all shared one trailer, with a white maltese and golden haired poodle. "You have a lot of rough mornings trying to get ready in a FEMA trail- er," she said. Before Saturday's prom, she had to apply her makeup in the trailer's dim lighting while a bulldozer cleared debris from a nearby lot. She and her classmates from Pass Christian High have been attending school in portable classrooms set up on the campus of the local elementary school. Enrollment was down from 600 students last year to 420. Other senior classes from Pass Christian have had their proms at a venue in downtown Gulfport but it, too, was damaged by the storm, so Saturday's party for the Class of 2006 was moved to the Orange Grove Com- munity Center off scenic U.S. 49, next to the Kangaroo Gas Station. Senior Ryan Spear was shocked the school could hold a prom at all, much less have it ready on time. "It isn't bittersweet. It's just sweet," fellow senior Heidi Knight said. "Hav- ing one just makes you feel normal." They got some assistance from far away, as six students from Pennsyl- vania's State College High School came to help them decorate and oth- ers in the central Pennsylvania town donated 150 formal dresses for the Pass Christian seniors. Court's move paves way for release of Afghan man who converted from Islam KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A court yesterday dismissed the case against an Afghan man facing possible execution for converting from Islam to Christianity, officials said, paving the way for his release. The move eased pressure from the West but raised the dilemma of protecting Abdul Rahman after his release as Islamic clerics have called for him to be killed. One official said freedom might come as soon as today for Rahman, who became a Christian in the 1990s while working for an aid group in neighboring Pakistan. Muslim extremists, who have demanded death for Rahman as an apostate for rejecting Islam, warned the decision would touch off protests across this religiously conservative country. Some clerics previously vowed to incite Afghans to kill Rah- man if he was let go. Rahman was moved to Kabul's notorious high-security Policharki prison Friday after inmates at a jail in central Kabul threatened him, Polich- arki's warden, Gen. Shahmir Amir- pur, said. Authorities have barred journalists from seeing Rahman. But yesterday, officials gave AP an exclusive tour of Policharki, which houses some 2,000 inmates, including about 350 Taliban and al-Qaida militants. Amirpur said Rahman had been asking guards for a Bible but they had none to give him. "He looks very calm. But he keeps saying he is hearing voices," Amirpur said. Rahman was in solitary confine- ment in a tiny concrete cell next to a senior prison guard's office. AP was shown the cell door, but barred from speaking with or otherwise communi- cating with him. A senior guard said inmates and many guards had not been told of Rahman's identity because of fears they might attack him. But Amirpur vouched for the pris- oner's safety. "We are watching him constantly. This is a very sensitive case so he needs high security." The case set off an outcry in the United States and other nations that helped oust the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001 and provide aid and military support for Afghan Pres- ident Hamid Karzai. President Bush and others insisted Afghanistan pro- tect personal beliefs. A Supreme Court spokesman, Abdul Wakil Omeri, said the case had been dismissed because of "prob- lems with the prosecutors' evidence." He said several of Rahman's relatives testified he is mentally unstable and prosecutors have to "decide if he is mentally fit to stand trial." Another Afghan official closely involved with the case told The Associated Press that the court ruled there was insufficient evidence and returned the case to prosecutors for further investigation. But he said Rahman would be released in the meantime. t tng sa ety concerns te E uropean union nanneay airlnes weanes- day from its airspace. Most of the airlines are from Africa, where planes are six times likelier to crash than elsewhere and travelers swap tales of crises averted. In announcing the ban on virtually all aircraft overseen by civil aviation authorities in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, Swaziland and Congo from landing at European airports, EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot labeled many of the planes "flying coffins." Wednesday's ban and earlier similar orders rankle many Africans. They point out that most of the banned airlines - like Thom's Airways from Congo - no longer operate and never fly to Europe anyway, while Africans have little choice but to use them to hop around the world's poorest continent. BAGHDAD 30 bodies, most beheaded, found near Baghdad Iraqi forces found 30 bodies, most beheaded, near a village north of Baghdad yester- day, in one of the bloodiest episodes in a cycle of apparent sectarian killings. Police said the bodies were found after police and soldiers were dispatched to respond to a report of killings in Mullah Eid, a village near the town of Buhriz, a former strong- hold of ex-President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party about 35 miles north of Baghdad. Authorities gave no immediate information on the identities of the victims or on who may have been responsible. CORRECTIONS - Compiled from Daily wire reports A caption on Friday's front page misidentified the swimmer in the photograph as Peter Vanderkaay. The image was of his brother, Alex Vanderkaay. A caption on Friday's page three misidentified the subject of the photograph as Chi- nese calligrapher Haji Noor Deen. The man in the photogwas Ihsan Toabi, a visitor of the exhibition. Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@,michigandaily.com. Ghbe ffiirbtw Di1 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com 0 DoNN M. 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