The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Friday, September 28, 2007 - 3

NEWS BRIEFS
YANGON, Myanmar
Soldiers gun
down anti-gov't
protesters
Soldiers with automatic rifles
fired into crowds of anti-govern-
ment demonstrators yesterday,
killing at least nine people in the
bloodiest dayin more thanamonth
of protests demanding an end to
military rule.
Bloody sandals lay scattered
on some streets as protesters fled
shouting "Give us freedom, give us
freedom!"
On the second day of a brutal
crackdown, truckloads of troops
in riot gear also raided Buddhist
monasteries on the outskirts of
Yangon, beating and arresting
dozens of monks, witnesses and
Western diplomats said. Japan
protested the killing of a Japanese
photographer..
Daily demonstrations by tens
of thousands have grown into the
stiffest challenge to the ruling
junta in two decades, a crisis that
beganAug. 19 withrallies againsta
fuel price hike then escalated dra-
matically when monks began join-
ing the protests.
lENA, La.
Charges against
teen dropped in
Jena 6 case
A black teenager whose pros-
ecution in the beating of a white
classmate promptedamassivecivil
rights protest here walked out of a
courthouse yesterday after a judge
ordered him freed.
MychalBell's release on $45,000
bail came hours after a prosecutor
confirmed he would no longer seek
an adult trial for the 17-year-old.
Bell, one of the teenagers known
as the Jena Six, still faces trial as
a juvenile in the December beat-
ing in this small central Louisiana
town.
District Attorney Reed Walters'
decision to abandon adult charges
means that Bell, who had faced a
maximum of 15 years in prison on
his aggravated second-degree bat-
tery conviction last month, instead
could be held only until he turns
21 if he is found guilty in juvenile
court.
WASHINGTON
Congress passes
children's health
care law
Congress approved legislation
yesterday that would potentially
add 4 million children to a popu-
lar health care program, setting
up a veto fight that President Bush
probably will win but handing
Democrats a campaign issue for
next year's elections.
Eighteen Republicans in the
Senate lined up with Democrats
in voting 67-29 to increase spend-
ing on the State Children's Health
Insurance Program, or SCHIP,
from about $5 billion to $12 billion
annually for the next five years.
The vote was enough to over-
ride a promised Bush veto. But
supporters in the House, which
passed the bill Tuesday, are about
two dozen votes shy of an over-
ride. Both chambers would have
to muster two-thirds majorities to
win a veto showdown.
WASHINGTON

Army wants to
spend $3 billion to
expand force
The Army, stretched thin- by
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
wants to spend nearly $3 billion
extra to accelerate its expansion of
the active-duty force, Army Secre-
tary Pete Geren said yesterday.
Geren said he has discussed the
proposal with Defense Secretary
Robert Gates and expects a deci-
sion soon.
Speeding up the expansion
would mean recruiting faster and
increasing the number of soldiers
who re-enlist, he said.
In an interview with a group of
reporters, Geren also said it was
possible that even while five Army
combat brigades are withdrawn
from Iraq between December and
July, the number of non-combat
troops there could stay the same or
even increase. He stressed that he
was not predicting any particular
level of support forces in Iraq in
2008 but also was not assuming the
number would be lower by then.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
F llE A ERiCANV
3,800
Number of American service
members who have died in the war
in Iraq, according to The Associat-
ed Press. No new service members
were identified by the Department
of Defense yesterday.

Joblessness.
down around
Michigan

Officials: Chaos
reigned in shooting

A2 rate falls
to 5 percent
LANSING (AP) - Seasonally
unadjusted unemployment rates
dropped in all of Michigan's 17
regional labormarkets inAugust,
state officials said yesterday.
Total employment rose in 11
regions from July to August, with
the biggest increase in Niles-Ben-
ton Harbor, which had a 2.9 per-
centgainduemostlytotheopening
of a new gaming casino, according
to the Michigan Department of
Labor & Economic Growth.
Themonthlysurveyofemploy-
ers indicated that seasonally
unadjusted payroll jobs in Michi-
gan rose in August because of
people returning to auto-related
manufacturing jobs after the end
of the traditional July plant shut-
down period to retool for model
changeovers.
"Jobless rates typically fall in
August throughout Michigan,"
said Rick Waclawek, director of
DLEG's Bureau of Labor Market
Information & Strategic Initia-
tives. However, "the size of the
work force in most regions of the
state was reduced as summer and
seasonal employment opportuni-
ties began to wind down."
Since August 2006, jobless
rates have increased slightly in
nine regions, with the largest
increase being in the Detroit-
Livonia-Warren region.
Regional unemployment rates
are not seasonally adjusted, but
national and state unemployment
rates are adjusted to remove sea-
sonal influences such as pro-
duction cycles, holidays, model
changeovers in the auto industry
and climate conditions.
Michigan's seasonally adjust-
ed jobless rate in August was 7.4
percent, highest in the nation.
Regional unadjusted jobless
rates for August ranged from a
low of 5 percent in Ann Arbor to a
high of 8 percent in Flint.

The state's major labor market
areas, their seasonally unadjust-
ed jobless rates for August and
the change since July:
* Ann Arbor, 5 percent, down
from 5.6 percent.
* Battle Creek, 6.6 percent, down
from 7.6 percent.
. Bay City, 6.4 percent, down
from 7.5 percent.
* Detroit-Warren-Livonia, 7.9
percent, down from 8.4 percent.
* Flint, 8 percent, down from 9.8
percent.
. Grand Rapids-Wyoming, 5.9
percent, down from 6.9 percent.
. Holland-Grand Haven, 5.3 per-
cent, down from 6.1 percent.
* Jackson, 7.6 percent, down
from 8.2 percent.
. Kalamazoo-Portage, 5.4 per-
cent, down from 6.3 percent.
. Lansing-East Lansing, 5.7 per-
cent, down from 7.2 percent.
. Monroe, 6.4 percent, down
from 8.2 percent.
* Muskegon-Norton Shores, 7.1
percent, down from 8 percent.
* Niles-Benton Harbor, 6.3 per-
cent, down from 7.4 percent.
* Saginaw-Saginaw Township
North, 6.9 percent, down from
8.1 percent.
* Upper Peninsula, 6.3 percent,
down from 6.9 percent.
* Northeast Lower Michigan, 7.6
percent, down from 8.4 percent.
" Northwest Lower Michigan,
6.3 percent, down from 6.8 per-
cent.

While some guards
called for cease-fire,
others kept shooting
By JAMES GLANZ
and SABRINA TAVERNISE
The New York Times
BAGHDAD - Participants in
a contentious Baghdad security
operation this month have told U.S.
investigators that during the oper-
ation at least one guard continued
firing on civilians while colleagues
urgently called for a cease-fire.
At least one guard apparently
also drew a weapon on a fellow
guard who did not stop shooting, a
U.S. official said.
The operation, by the private
firm Blackwater USA, began as
a mission to evacuate senior U.S.
officials after an explosion near
where they were meeting, several
officials said. Some officials have
questioned the wisdom of evacu-
ating the Americans from a secure
compound, saying the area should
instead have been locked down.
These new details of the episode
on Sept. 16, in which at least eight
civilians were killed, including a
woman and an infant, were pro-
vided by a U.S. official who was
briefed on the U.S. investigation
by someone who helped conduct it,
and by Americans who had spoken
directly with -two guards involved
in the episode. Their accounts were
broadly consistent.
A spokeswoman for Blackwater,
Anne E. Tyrrell, said she could not
confirm any of the details provided
by the Americans.
The accounts provided the first
glimpse into the official U.S. inves-
tigation of the shooting, which has
angered Iraqi officials and prompt-
ed calls by the Iraqi government to
ban. Blackwater from working in
Iraq, and brought new scrutiny of

the widespread use of private secu-
city contractors here.
The U.S. official said that by
Wednesday morning, U.S. inves-
tigators still had not responded to
multiple requests for information
by Iraqi officials investigating the
episode. The official also said that
Blackwater had been conducting
its own investigation but had been
ordered by the United States to
stop that work. Tyrrell confirmed
that the company had conducted
an investigation of its own,' but
said, "No government entity has
discouraged us from doing so."
An Iraqi investigation had con-
cluded that the Blackwater guards
shot without provocation. But the
U.S. official said that the guards
have told U.S. investigators that
they believed that they fired in
response to enemy gunfire.
The Blackwater compound,
rimmed by concrete blast walls
and concertina wire in the Green
Zone in central Baghdad, has been
under tight control. Participants in
the Sept. 16 security operation have
been ordered not to speak about the
episode. But word of the disagree-
ment on the street has slowly made
its way through the community of
private security contractors.
The episode began around 11:50
a.m. on Sunday, Sept.16. Diplomats
with the U.S. Agency for Interna-
tional Development were meeting
in a guarded compound about a
mile northeast of Nisour Square,
where the shooting would later
take place.
A bomb exploded on the median
of a road a few hundred yards away
from the meeting, causing no inju-
ries to the Americans, but prompt-
ing a fateful decision to evacuate.
One U.S. official who knew about
the meeting cast doubt on the deci-
sion to move the diplomats out of a
secure compound.
"It raises the first question of
why didn't they just stay in place,
since they are safe in the com-

pound," the official said. "Usually
the concept would be, if an IED
detonates in the street, you would
wait 15 to 30 minutes, until things
calmed down," he said, using the
abbreviation for 'improvised explo-
sive device.'
But instead of waiting, a Black-
water convoy began carrying the
diplomats south, toward the Green
Zone. Because their route would
pass through Nissour Square,
another convoy drove there to
block traffic and ensure that the
diplomats would be able to pass.
At least four sport utility vehicles
stopped in lanes of traffic that were
entering the square from the south
and west. Some of the guards got
out of their vehicles and took posi-
tions on the street, accordingto the
official familiar with the report on
the U.S. investigation.
At 12:08 p.m., at least one guard
began to fire in the direction of
a car, killing its driver. A traffic
policeman said he walked toward
the car, but more shots were fired,
killing a woman holding an infant,
sitting in the passenger seat.
There are three versions of why
the shooting started. The Blackwa-
ter guards have told investigators
they believed that they were being
fired on, the official familiar with
the report said.
A preliminary Iraqi investiga-
tion has concluded that there was
no enemy fire, but some Iraqi wit-
nesses have said that Iraqi com-
mandos in nearby guard towers
may have been shooting as well,
possibly leading Blackwater guards
to believe that militants were firing
at them.
After the family was shot, a type
of grenade or flare was fired into
the car, setting it ablaze, accord-
ing to some accounts. Other Iraqis
were also killed as the shooting
continued. Iraqi officials have given
several death counts, ranging from
eight to 20, with perhaps several
dozen wounded.

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