Banner Graphic, Volume 21, Number 177, Greencastle, Putnam County, 1 April 1991 — Page 2

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THE BANNERGRAPHIC April 1, 1991

Government shows Kirkuk, claims two other cities taken

OUTSKIRTS OF DOHUK, Iraq (AP) Hundreds of thousands of Kurdish rebels and civilians fled into snowcapped mountains today after government forces using heavy artillery won control of the northern cities of Dohuk and Erbil. Having retaken the two cities, pro-Saddam forces reversed the greatest gain of the decades-long Kurdish rebellion against Iraqi control the capture of three major cities in the traditional Kurdish homeland in northern Iraq. WHILE BATTLES thundered around Dohuk and Erbil on Sunday, the government proved its control over the northern oil city of Kirkuk by showing the battle-ravaged city to Western reporters. Kurds fled today by any means possible into the mountains along the Iranian border, turning roadways into ribbons of moving humanity. Many women and children were forced to walk. Some, too tired to go on, lie on the roadsides without food or water. Refugees could be seen camping in the mountains, in the open without protection from rainstorms. PRO-SADDAM forces began their offensive against the Kurds last week after a string of victories against Shiite Muslim insurgents in the south and the United States’ declaration of neutrality in Iraq’s civil war. The string of government vic-

If war wasn’t a quagmire for U.S., the post-war certainly is

WASHINGTON (AP) There was a time last January when critics opposed to the use of force in the Persian Gulf had an apocalyptic vision. “Goodness,” they whispered, “what happens if we win?” One month after the humiliation of the Iraqi army by the allied coalition, President Bush is learning about the agonies of victory. The New World Order he has been touting doesn’t seem that much more promising than the old one. NONE OF THE alternatives the administration faces in Iraq seems palatable. If Saddam Hussein is forced from power, the northern - based Kurdish population could opt for independence from Baghdad no small consideration because that could fuel separatist tendencies by their Kurdish brethren in Syria, Turkey and Iran. To avoid such chaos, the administration has come out firmly in opposition to the dismemberment of Iraq.

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tories was spurred by the U.S. decision not to heed rebel requests and down the helicopter gunships that have been so effective against insurgents. The United States has shot down two Iraqi warplanes that took to the air in violation of the temporary cease-fire that ended the Persian Gulf War but declined to move against helicopters. KURDISH REBEL fighters said pockets of resistance remained today in Erbil, 75 miles to the southeast of Dohuk. Residents took flight from Dohuk, which is 30 miles south of the Turkish border, in the middle of the night as the government unleashed a devastating artillery barrage on the city of 350,000. Kurdish fighters also were in flight, though many insisted the fight was not over. “Do not think we are finished. We are used to mountain warfare,” said one. “This is not the first time we have been forced to retreat. We always live to fight another day.” SOME KURDS, however, said the mass flight was having a disastrous effect on morale, especially after initial successes against Saddam Hussein’s forces. Refugees asked why President Bush and his U.N. allies have allowed Saddam to use artillery and helicopters to break the Kurdish rebellion. “Why have they abandoned us to

An AP news analysis

The notion of a Shiite Muslimdominated Iraq would cause grave apprehension in Saudi Arabia, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims. Some in the Saudi hierarchy even believe that their best bet is a continuation in power by an enfeebled Saddam against whom the allied coalition was arrayed in Saudi Arabia in the first place. THE REGION IS rife with possibilities for instability even though the coalition has achieved its objectives of liberating Kuwait from Iraqi occupation and eliminating Saddam’s ability to threaten his

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Saddam?” was a question addressed repeatedly to Western reporters. U.S. military commanders in Saudi Arabia said Sunday that they were proceeding with their scheduled withdrawal from the Persian Gulf region of about 3,000 troops a day. THEY SAID THEY plan to begin pulling out the 100,000 U.S. troops in occupied Iraq, comprising the Army’s entire VII Corps, within days after a permanent cease-fire is ratified by the United Nations. More than one-quarter of the American troops sent to the region have already departed, leaving fewer than 400,000, the commanders said. The Kurds have pleaded for military and food aid from the U.S.-led allies or the United Nations, but appear to have received little material support The official Iraqi News Agency claimed Sunday that loyalist troops had driven Kurdish guerrillas out of Dohuk. On Saturday, nearly all civilians had fled the city, leaving it to guerrillas. A REBEL spokesman abroad, Hoshyar Zebari of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, said Dohuk and Erbil were attacked “with air and artillery shellings. Helicopter gunships, fixed-wing aircraft and multiple rocket launchers were used indiscriminately.” In the wake of Saddam’s gulf war defeat, Kurds had captured

neighbors. To those who argue that administration policy seems muddled, officials point out that U.S. diplomats are working feverishly at the United Nations for a permanent cease-fire that will enable American troops to come home soon. The administration also seems committed to avoid involvement in Iraq’s internal strife. “WE RE NOT GOING to take a position,” White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater said last week. “You can find scenarios that say inaction helps the Kurds, helps the Shiites, helps Iran, helps Saddam, helps everybody. We simply aren’t going to take a position.” It also constitutes a shift from Bush’s stand in January when he invited the Iraqi people and the Iraqi military to force Saddam “to step aside.” But U.S. inaction does carry a price. While American forces sit idly by, Saddam’s forces are mas-

Helped hide billions

U.S. has list of Saddam’s financial fronts

WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. government has compiled a list of “front” companies and agents around the world that helped Saddam Hussein’s family hide billions of dollars it skimmed from Iraq’s oil revenues. Saddam, who took power in 1979, is one of the world’s richest men, a joint U.S.-Kuwaiti investigation has found. THE INVESTIGATION determined that the Iraqi president’s family skimmed SlO billion in oil profits since 1981 and used the money to buy pieces of companies in Europe and the United States. Iraqi investors working for Saddam have purchased nearly $1 billion in shares of publicly traded companies, including French media

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nearly all of their traditional homeland and talked of setting up a provisional government in the region. Now, the rebellion appears headed for collapse, with no food supplies getting through to the Kurdish population and people fleeing en masse into the hills. “MANY PEOPLE are on the brink of starvation. No food and no water supplies are available,” Zebari said in London. The Kurd’s greatest conquest was Kirkuk, a city of 500,000 about 150 miles north of Baghdad and center of a major oil-producing region. But the government showed the city to Western reporters on Sunday, and said the army had wrested it from rebel control three days earlier. Associated Press reporter Wafa Amr said charred bodies lay at the city’s entrance and the burned hulks of cars and trucks, one with a corpse still inside, littered its streets. ALI HUSSEIN, a merchant, said he had seen 500 bodies removed from a downtown sidestreet. The umbrella Iraqi Kurdish Front on Sunday accused Saddam’s forces of using napalm, phosphorous bombs and other weapons in Erbil, killing “a great number of civilians, whose bodies are laying all over Erbil’s streets.”

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sacring Kurdish and Shiite rebels, who have been trying to do precisely what Bush had been recommending in January. The rebels have even been denied highlevel access to administration policymakers. THE U.S. decision not to become embroiled in the Iraqi turmoil is being attacked by human-rights organizations. Andrew Whitley, of Middle East

giant Hachette SA, according to the chief investigator, Julius Kroll. Kroll said last week that he discovered companies linked to Saddam stretching from Italy to France to Germany to Britain and the United States. THE TREASURY Department planned to release the names of the front companies and agents at a news conference today. The Treasury and State departments and the FBI, in cooperation with Kuwaiti authorities and Kroll, have been investigating Saddam’s finances since Iraq invaded Kuwait last Aug. 2, a U.S. government source said last week. The results of the investigation likely will be used in war reparations claims against Iraq by

Sailors deny charges of sabotage during Gulf War

OLONGAPO, Philippines (AP) Two American sailors said today that they were being court-martialed because they were Muslims, denying allegations they plotted to sabotage theii ship during the Persian Gulf War. Airman Apprentice Abdul H. Shaheed, 22, of St. George, S.C., and Seaman Apprentice James L. Moss, 21, of Columbus, Ohio, were ordered on Friday to stand trial. AN INVESTIGATION found sufficient evidence to support allegations they planned to sabotage the carrier USS Ranger while on duty in the Persian Gulf in January. The Navy claimed the alleged conspiracy was in support of Saddam Hussein’s call for Muslims worldwide to rise up in a holy war against the United States. Shaheed and Moss were charged with “urging disloyalty, mutiny or refusal of duty” after being implicated in a plot to kidnap the carrier’s skipper, Capt. Ernest Christensen, and sabotage the ship’s catapult launch system and engineering equipment. “I AM HERE today because I have been accused unjustly of a lot of horrible things which are simply untrue,” Shaheed told a news conference at the Subic Bay naval station, 50 miles west of Manila. “I am a victim of incredible

Watch, said: “As the occupation of Iraq was an action authorized by the U.N. Security Council, it is inappropriate for the United States to stand back on a temporary ceasefire line and to allow abuses on a widespread scale to take place a short distance away from them without intervening,” THE BEST-CASE scenario for the administration is the emergence

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel. THE TREASURY said recently it has seized or is preparing to seize an estimated Si billion to $1.5 billion of assets in the United States owned by Saddam or the Iraqi government. On March 22, for example, Treasury agents seized the assets of Anees Wadi, his wife Shamsaban al-Hayderi and Bay Industries Inc., a company based in Santa Monica, Calif. The government alleged that all three had helped Saddam procure arms for Iraq. Kroll was hired by the Kuwaiti government and the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control to find out the size and location of Saddam’s wealth. KROLL, PRESIDENT of the New York-based Kroll Associates investigations company, spoke in interviews last week with the Financial Times, a British newspaper, and CBS News’ “60 Minutes” program. The reports quoted him as saying

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exaggeration, hysteria and paranoia. I truly believe that all of this is happening to me simply because I am a Muslim,” he said. Shaheed, who changed his name from Kevin E. Brothers when he converted to Islam two years ago, said another sailor, Airman Apprentice Gregory Jones “made up his whole story” about the abduction and told the skipper about it. SHAHEED AND Moss were flown to the Philippines the following day and investigated, the Navy said. Moss, who is also Muslim, said he had obeyed all orders from his superiors during the gulf war because he opposed Saddam and was loyal to the United States. “I would like to say that I vehemently deny the charge against me and plan to fight for an acquittal to renew my good reputation and the good reputation of all law-abiding Muslims,” he said. Moss said he was pursuing an earlier request to be discharged from the military as a conscientious objector. Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Mukri said no date for the court-martial has been set, but the trial will take place at Subic. Mukri said a conviction would mean dishonorable discharge, 10 years imprisonment and forfeiture of pay and allowances.

of post-Saddam coalition government comprised of all the major groupings in the country the army, the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunnis that would be able to carry out the terms of a permanent truce. But the tradition of peaceful compromise is not deeply rooted in Iraq, and that outcome is therefore not considered to be likely.

Saddam and his family have skimmed as much as 5 percent of Iraq’s S2OO billion in oil sales since 1981. Kroll also said he found evidence they siphoned an average of 2.5 percent off contracts with Japanese companies. Kroll discovered that Saddam’s holdings include an 8.4 percent stake, worth about $64 million, in Hachette, which publishes Elie, Car and Driver, Road & Track and V/oman’s Day magazines. KROLL SAID HIS agency found documents showing the Hachette share purchases started in 1981 with a 1 percent acquisition by Montana Management, a holding company based in Geneva, Switzerland, with Iraqi directors. Hachette said last week it has started an investigation to determine the identities of Montana Management’s shareholders. It said it would be prepared to buy back those shares.