House budget challenges Bush priorities
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House
Budget Committee moved toward
passage Tuesday of a $1.46 trillion
Democratic budget for 1992 that would
reshuffle some of President Bush’s
domestic priorities and could set the
tone for a year of confrontation be
tween the White House and Con
gress.
Work on the budget came as law
makers returned from their holiday
recess and as Democrats and Repub
licans girded to battle over a host of
contentious domestic issues, includ
ing civil rights, crime legislation and
parental leave.
On Wednesday, a House Judiciary
subcommittee will consider the so
called Brady Bill, named for former
White House press secretary Jim Brady.
The legislation would impose a seven
day waiting period on people seeking
to buy a handgun. The administration
has criticized the bill.
The budget proposed by Demo
crats neither raises nor cuts taxes but
reverses multi-billion dollar cuts Bush
would make in Medicare, veterans'
pensions and other benefit programs.
It also shifts about $10 billion Bush
would spend on science, space and
other programs to social initiatives
such as education, child care and job
training.
Constrained by record federal
deficits and budget rules that strictly
limit spending, many of the Demo
cratic efforts to reshape Bush’s budget
were modest.
Rather than cutting $226 million
from job-training initiatives, as Bush
has proposed, Democrats would raise
spending on such programs by $23
million. They would boost spending
for the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration by $377 million, well
below the $1.1 billion increase Bush
has requested.
Adhering to limits included in last
fall’s five-year budget agreement, both
Democrats and the White House
envision defense spending next year
of about $295 billion with a federal
Hunger plagues Basra
Mitor s Note: This story was sub
jected to Iraqi censorship.
BASRA, Iraq (AP) - Barefoot boys
and girls fight swarms of flies to col
lect water from puddles rank with the
bodies of animals. Hungry children
are fed starch and water instead of
milk.
After two wars and a month-long
Shiite Muslim rebellion, Basra’s people
are often hungry, ill and desperate.
The southern city Western report
ers visited this week bore little resem
blance to the thriving port of 1 mil
lion people that once was known as
the Venice of the Middle East.
The city was hammered by artil
lery during the 1980-88 war with Iran;
pounded by allied bombs during the
war for Kuwait; and further devas
tated when Saddam Hussein’s troops
put down the uprising by Shiite rebels
that followed the gulf war.
The rattle of gunfire could still be
heard in the distance Monday, and
soldiers and residents said the area
remained unsafe.
“Adults and children have died
and are still dying from severe mal
nutrition and diseases we cannot
confirm (diagnose) because of the
lack of equipment and medicine,”
"M --——
Adults and children
have died and are still
dying from severe
malnutrition...
Dr. Salem Bakos
Al-Tahir hospital
-ft -
said Dr. Salem Bakos of Al-Tahrir
hospital.
“During the last two weeks, five
babies less than 8 months old have
died here,” he said.
Doctors said Al-Tahrir, which was
riddled by bullets inside and out, was
the city’s only functioning hospital.
Dr. Mohammed Jassem said about
two dozen new patients were admit
ted each day because of severe dehy
dration or other critical conditions.
Bakos accused the rebels of loot
ing the hospital’s stores, destroying
equipment, stealing or burning am
bulances and expelling patients.
Reporters were unable to confirm how
the visible damage occurred.
No one knows how many people
now live in Basra, but it is certain that
many were killed or fled the recent
fighting. The streets of the city were
littered with the stinking bodies of
dead animals, some gnawed by packs
of roving dogs and covered with flies
and mosquitoes.
Residents said municipal water
supplies were cut off when the allied
bombing began Jan. 17, and service
has not been restored. This week,
women and children collected water
from the polluted Shatt-al-Arab wa
terway, or from muddy puddles —
some fouled by the bodies of animals.
“We don’t care if the water is
clean. We need water and this is what
we have,” said a 15-year-old boy who
gave his name only as Hussein.
Government food deliveries halted
during last month’s rebellion, resi
dents said, leaving the black market
as the only source for supplies.
“If food products arc found in the
black market, the prices arc usually
very high. We cannot afford to buy it
and feed our children,” said Samira
Hussein, a mother of four whose
husband was reported missing in the
gulf war.
At the market, vendors sold toma
toes and cucumbers scattered on the
dirt in frontof them under a blanket of
insects. The odor of dirt and dead
animals filled the air.
deficit exceeding $280 billion. That
shortfall would be the second largest
ever, surpassed only by the $318 bil
lion in red ink expected this year.
The Senate convened for the first
time since the deaths of Sen. John
Heinz, R-Pa., and former Sen. John
Tower, R-Texas, in airplane crashes
last week.
Several members of Congress are
scheduled to attend Heinz’s funeral
in Pittsburgh on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the Senate I^bor
and Human Resources Committee will
take up the divisive issue of requiring
employers to give workers up to 12
weeks of unpaid leave for newborn
children or medical emergencies. Bush
vetoed similar legislation last year,
but Democrats in Congress consider
it a high-priority item and are trying
again.
The plight of Kurdish refugees in
northern Iraq clearly was also on
lawmakers’ minds as they returned.
Several senators who attended a hear
ing on whether to seek to try Saddam
Husse in for war crimes said they were
chagrined that Saddam was able to
slaughter civilian refugees without
interference from the United States.
“We have a moral obligation to do
what we can,” said Sen. Claiborne
Pell, D-R.I., suggesting the threat of
U.S. air power would force Saddam
to curtail the killings.
Poland watches first troops
withdraw from military base
BORNE-SULINOWO, Poland
(AP) - A train carried away Soviet
missile launchers and 60 soldiers
from a formerly top-secret military
base Tuesday, beginning the Red
Army’s withdrawal from Poland.
But Polish and Soviet negotia
tors remained at odds over when
the rest of the Soviet Union’s 50,000
soldiers would leave. Their depar
ture will end a deployment that
started 47 years ago when the Red
Army chased out the German oc
cupiers and then stayed on to prop
up a series of pro-Moscow govern
ments.
During months of tense nego
tiations, Poland has demanded that
all the Soviet troops be pulled out
by the end of this year, as is planned
for Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
The Soviets say they will not va
cate Poland before the end of 1993.
The troop train pulled away in
pouring rain at 11 a.m. after a cere
mony that included speeches by
Soviet and Polish generals, and a
Soviet garrison band playing the
Soviet and Polish national anthems.
Soviet Gen. Viktor Dubynin,
commander of the Northern Forces
group, told the members of the
Guards Missile Brigade they had
guaranteed “the independence of
Poland.”
“Our mission has been com
pleted successfully,” he added.
Soviet children heldasign read
ing: “Thank you for your services
in the Northern Forces group” and
handed the departing soldiers small
plastic banners and badges.
The only Polish presence was
50 soldiers from a nearby Polish
garrison and a three-member par
liamentary delegation, including
Sen. Andrzej Szczypiorski, a well
known writer who long opposed
the Soviet-backed Communist
regime in Poland.
“I never believed I would see
this day,” he told reporters after
shaking hands with the soldiers
boarding the train.
Feelings were mixed about the
pullout among Poles living near
the 54-mile-wide base, which grew
up in northwest Poland around a
small World War 11 German bar
racks into one of the largest mili
tary training areas in Europe. |
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