The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 3
NEWS BRIEFS
WASHINGTON
Officials say Obama
to nominate Gregg
for commerce spot
President Barack Obama plans to
nominate Sen. Judd Gregg as com-
merce secretary on Tuesday, the
White House confirmed on the eve
of the announcement as the New
Hampshire Republican disclosed
an apparent deal that would keep
his seat out of Democratic hands.
"I have made it clear to the Sen
ate leadership on both sides of the
aisle and to the governor that I
would not leave the Senate if I felt
my departure would cause a change
inthe makeup of the Senate," Gregg
said Monday in a statement. The
White House confirmed the Gregg
choice on the condition of anonim-
ity because the announcement had
not yet been made.
New Hampshire Gov. John
Lynch confirmed the "understand-
log," stopping just short of prom-
ising to appoint a Republican or
an independent to serve out the
remaining two years of Gregg's
term.
The deal would give Obama his
top choice for a team tasked with
steering the nation out of reces-
sion. Republicans get to keep
Gregg's seat for two more years,
retaining the crucial 41 Senate
seats they need to filibuster major-
ity Democrats.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia
Dismay as Gadhafi
chosen to lead
African Union
Moammar Gadhafi of Libya
was elected Monday as leader of
the African Union, a position long
sought by the eccentric dictator
who wants to push his oil-rich
nation into the international main-
stream after years of isolation.
Gadhafi, once ostracized by the
West for sponsoring terrorism, has
been trying to increase both Lib-
ya's global stature and its regional
influence - mediating African
conflicts, sponsoring efforts to
spread Islam on the continent and
pushing for the creation of a single
African government.
Still, some African leaders
offered tepid praise for the choice
of the strongman who. grabbed
power in a 1969 coup. Rights
groups called him a poor model
for Africa at a time when demo-
cratic gains are being reversed in
countries such as Mauritania and
Guinea.
CHICAGO
Wisecracking
mobster Joey the
Clown gets life term
Reputed mob boss Joseph "Joey
the Clown" Lombardo was sen-
tenced Monday to life in federal
prison for serving as a leader of Chi-
cago's organized crime family and
the murder of a government witness
in a union pension fraud case.
Lombardo, 80, was among three
reputed mob bosses and two alleged
henchmen convicted in September
2007 at the landmark Operation
Family Secrets trial which lifted the
curtain of secrecy from the seamy
operations of Chicago's underworld.
"The worst things you have done
are terrible and I see no regret in
them," U.S. District Judge James
B. Zagel said in imposing sentence.
He also sentenced Lombardo sepa-
rately to 168 months for going on
Sthe lam for eight months after he
was charged.
DEARBORN, Mich.
Congressional
agency miscounts
Dingell record date
U.S. Rep. John Dingell has
received a recount, and it means
he'll set a longevity record three
days earlier than thought.
The U.S. House historian's office
says the 82-year-old Dearborn
Democrat will become the longest
serving member Feb. 11, 2009. That
will be his 19,420th day in office.
The current record-holder is ex-
Rep. Jamie Whitten, D-Miss., who
died in 1995.
The Congressional Research
Service earlier said Dingell would
break the record Feb. 14.
Dingell's office said Monday the
historian's office and the research
service found a mistake in the
count of how many days Dingell
had served.
He was first elected Dec. 13, 1955.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
Mullen: Afghanistan is no Vietnam
Pentagon to deploy
additional 15,000
troops this spring
WASHINGTON (AP) - The top
U.S.military officer cautioned Mon-
day against comparing the Penta-
gon'srenewedfocusonAfghanistan
to the Vietnam War, citing terror-
ism and a non-occupation strategy
as "dramatic differences" between
the two conflicts.
"Afghanistan is much more com-
plex," said Navy Adm. Mike Mul-
len, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
He added: "I certainly recog-
nize - and having been in Viet-
nam myself - that there are those
who make comparisons. I would be
pretty careful about that though,
for lots of reasons."
Mullen's comments came as the
Pentagon prepares to deploy an
additional 15,000 Army and Marine
troops to Afghanistan this spring
and summer in the Obama adminis-
tration's military campaign to shut
down the Taliban and al-Qaida.
Ultimately, an estimated 60,000
U.S. troops could be in Afghanistan
over the next year as Obama starts
ordering soldiers from Iraq. There
are currently about 32,000 Ameri-
can troops in Afghanistan.
Speaking to a Washington meet-
ing of the Reserve Officers Asso-
ciation, Mullen stopped short of
predicting how long U.S. troops
would remain in Afghanistan. He
said the main difference between
Afghanistan and Vietnam is that
"we are not an occupying force."
"We have no intention of that,"
Mullen said. "There isn't any of the
42-plus countries who are there
that have that intention. ... That
said, we cannot send a message to
the Afghan people that we are."
Chief among the concerns, Mul-
len said, is makingsure Afghanistan
never again becomes a safe haven
for al-Qaida leaders who moved to
lawless Pakistan tribal regions in
the post-9/11 hunt for Osama bin
Laden.
"We cannot accept that al-Qaida
leadership which continues to plan
against us every single day - and I
mean us, here in America - to have
that safe haven in Pakistan nor
could resume one in Afghanistan,"
Mullen said.
Efforts to eliminate govern-
ment corruption and develop the
poor nation also marks a con-
trast between the U.S. mission in
Afghanistan from Vietnam, Mullen
said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates
met Monday with President Barack
Obama, but White House spokes-
man Robert Gibbs would not say
whether the two discussed troop
levels in Afghanistan..
Meanwhile, the Pentagon
released a long-awaited study Mon-
day describing crumbling security
and a peak in violence in Afghani-
stan in spring and summer of 2008.
Reacting to the study, House
Armed Services Committee Chair-
man Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said in
a statement that the situation in
Afghanistan is troubling and will
need more time and effort.
"The mission in Afghanistan
continues to be limited by short-
falls in both military and civilian
resources," Skelton said. "The prob-
lems are manifold: too few trainers
and mentors for the Afghan Nation-
al Security Forces; pervasive cor-
ruption and alack of leadership and
human capital within the Govern-
ment of Afghanistan; slow progress
in economic reconstruction and
in the counternarcotics fight; and
the ongoing existence of insurgent
safe havens along the border with
Pakistan, one of the greatest chal-
lenges to long-term security in the
region."
The quarterly status report,
required by Congress, focused
mostly on data available between
April and September 2008 but
included some year-end details,
including:
-Between January and Decem-
ber 10, 2008, 132 U.S. personnel in
Afghanistan died as the result of
hostile action, up from 82 in 2007.
-The Afghan National Army Air
Corps is beefing up its reconnais-
sance and gunship fleets and added
27 new helicopters and cargo planes
by the end of December.
-As of December, NATO had
provided only 42 Operational Men-
tor Liaison Teams out of 103 prom-
ised to train the Afghan National
Security Forces.
Senate confirms
Eric Holder as
first black AG
CLAY JACKSON/AP
Kentucky National guard members William Swartwood, left, and Jerry Bailey help unload branches from the back of a truck
owned by Russell Justice yesterday at the quarry in Danville, KY.
FEMA gets decent m -arks
for ice stor-m response.
Former prosecutor,
judge confirmed
with 75-21 vote
WASHINGTON (AP) - Eric
Holder won Senate confirmation .
Monday as the nation's first Afri-
can-American attorney general,
after supporters from both parties
touted his dream resume and easily
overcameRepublicanconcernsover
his commitment to fight terrorism
and his unwillingness to back the
right to keep and bear arms.
The vote was 75-21, with all the
opposition coming from Republi-
cans.
Holder's chief supporter, Sen.
Patrick Leahy, said the confir-
mation was a fulfillment of civil
rights leader Martin Luther
King's dream that everyone
would be judged by the content of
their character.
"Come on the right side of his-
tory;" said Leahy, D-Vt., chairman
of the Judiciary Committee.
Holder becomes the only black
in the Obama administration in
what has traditionally been known*
as the president's Cabinet. Three
other African-Americans have
been chosen for top administration
positions that hold the same rank.
Holder was a federal prosecu-
tor, judge and the No. 2 Justice
Department official in the Clinton
administration. Even his critics
agreed that Holder was well-qual-
ified, but they questioned his posi-
tions and independence.
The debate turned partisan in
its first moments, when Leahy,
expressed anger that a few Repub-
licans demanded a pledge from
Holder that he wouldn't prosecute
intelligence agents who participat-
ed in harsh interrogations.
Leahy singled out Texas Repub-
lican John Cornyn as one who
wanted to "turn a blind eye to pos-
sible lawbreaking before investi-
gating whether it occurred."
"No one should be seeking to
trade a vote for such a pledge,"
Leahy said.
When Cornyn rose to announce
his vote against Holder, he did not
make such a demand. However,
he accused the nominee of chang-
ing his once-supportive position
- on the need to detain terrorism
suspects without all the rights
of the Geneva Convention - to
one of harshly criticizingBush
administration's counterterror-
ism policies.
"His contrasting positions from
2002 to 2008 make me wonder if
this is the same person," Cornyn
said. "It makes me wonder what he
truly believes."
Cornyn and Sen. Tom Coburn
said Holder was hostile to the
right of individuals to own guns,
despite a Supreme Court ruling
last June affirming the right to
have weapons for self-defense in
the home.
Holder said at his confirmation
hearings: "I understand that the
Supreme Court has spoken." But
he added that some restrictions on
guns could still be legal.
Death toll raised to
24 in Kentucky,
55 nationwide
EDDYVILLE, Ky. (AP) - In the
first real test of the Obama admin-
istration's ability to respond to a
disaster, Kentucky officials are
giving the federal government
good marks for its response to a
deadly ice storm.
Yet more than 300,000 resi-
dents remained without power
Monday and some areas had yet
to see aid workers nearly a week
after the storm, a fact not lost on
some local authorities.
"We haven't seen FEMA. They
haven't been here," said Jaime
Green, a spokeswoman for the
emergency operations center
in Lyon County, about 95 miles
northwest of Nashville, Tenn.
Federal authorities insisted
they responded as soon as the
state asked for help and promised
to keep providing whatever aid
was necessary.
FEMA has been under the
microscope since the Bush admin-
istration's botched response
to Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
which" Barack~Obama and other
Democrats made a favorite topic
on the presidential campaign
trail. FEMA was reorganized and
strengthened after that, and it has
avoided the onslaught of negative
feedback Katrina generated.
The agency hasn't been tested
the same way it was after the hur-
ricane, however.
Gov. Steve Beshear raised Ken-
tucky's death toll to 24 on Mon-
day, meaning the storm has been
blamed in at least 55 deaths nation-
wide. And while it also knocked out
power to more than a million cus-
tomers from the Southern Plains to
the East Coast, it's still considered
a medium-sized disaster, the kind
FEMA has traditionally been suc-
cessful handling.
The Kentucky disaster w.ill
be closely watched, said Rich-
ard Sylves, professor of politi-
cal science at the University of
Delaware, particularly because
Obama hasn't yet named the top
FEMA officials, many of whom
must go through Senate confir-
mation.
"If it's perceived not to be
handled very well, or if there's
a sense that there's-insensitivity
at the federal level to the plight
of people suffering, I imagine
the people President Obama has
appointed to senior positions in
FEMA will be grilled in their con-
firmation hearings," said Sylves,
who has written four books on
federal disaster policy.
Beshear asked Obama for a
disaster declaration to free up fed-
eral assistance Thursday, two days
after the storm hit, and Obama
issued it hours later. Trucks load-
ed with supplies began arriving at
a staging area at Fort Campbell,
Ky., on Friday morning, said Mary
Hudak, a spokeswoman for the
Federal Emergency Management
Agency.
On Saturday, Beshear ordered
all of the state's Army National
Guardsmen into action to distrib-
ute supplies, many of which came
from FEMA.
Beshear has consistently
praised Obama, a fellow Demo-
crat, for the attention he's devoted
to what Beshear calls the biggest
natural disaster to hit his state.
Maritime colleges to train
sailors in fight against pirates
298 piracy incidents
reported in 2008
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -
With an alarming number of tank-
ers and cargoshipsgettinghijacked
on the high seas, the nation's mari-
time academies are offering more
training to merchant seamen in
how to fend off attacks from pirates
armed not with cutlasses and flint-
locks but automatic weapons and
grenade launchers.
Collegesareteachingstudentsto
fishtail their vessels at high speed,
drive off intruders with high-pres-
sure water hoses and illuminate
their decks with floodlights.
Anti-piracy training is not
new. Nor are the techniques. But
the lessons have taken on new
urgency - and more courses are
planned - because of the record
number of attacks worldwide in
2008 by outlaws who seize ships
and hold them for ransom.
At the California Maritime Acad-
emy in Vallejo, Calif., professor
Donna Nincic teaches two courses
on piracy. Students learn where the
piracy hotspots are and how they
have shifted over the years.
"If I've done anything, I've
shown them that this isn't a joke,
it's not about parrots and eye
patches and Blackbeard and all
that," Nincic said. "It's very real
and it's a problem without an easy
solution."
Emily Rizzo, a student at the
MassachusettsMaritimeAcademy
in Buzzards Bay, Mass., worked
aboard a 760-foot cargo ship last
year as part of her training. As the
vessel sailed the Malacca Straits
in Southeast Asia, she served on
"pirate watches," learned to use
hoses and took part in drills with
alarms indicating the ship had
been boarded.
The training "brought to light
just how serious it is," said Rizzo,
a 22-year-old senior from Milwau-
kee. "The pirates can get on board
these huge ships and they know
whatthey're doing. It's not like the
old days."
The International Maritime
Bureau reported 293 piracy inci-
dents in 2008, an increase of 11
percent from the year before. For-
ty-nine vessels were hijacked, and
889 crew members were taken
hostage. Eleven were killed and
21 reported missing and presumed
dead, according to the bureau.
Piracy hotspots have been iden-
tified offEastAfrica and in South-
east Asia, South America and the
Caribbean.
Typically, small numbers of
pirates - as few as two and up
to 15 or 16 - draw up alongside
ships in motorized skiffs and use
grappling hooks and rope ladders
to clamber aboard. Some of the
biggest ships might have no more
than two dozen crew members.
often the pirates are armed
with knives and guns. Pirates off
the coast of Somalia have taken
to firing automatic weapons and
rocket-propelled grenades.
In the old days, ships were
armed with cannons to guard
against pirates. But nowadays,
crew members for the most part
do not carry guns. And maritime
instructors say that arming crews
is not the answer.
It is illegal for crews to carry
weapons in the territorial waters
of many nations, and ship captains
are wary of armingcrew members
for fear of mutinies, Nincic said.
Also, some worry that arming
crew members would only cause
the violence to escalate.
LATE NIGHT DELIVERY!