News digest
Assault lights up night
on Gulf War anniversary
Media witnesses blast
closely reminiscent of
attack two years ago
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Glowing anti-aircraft
shells streaked over Baghdad late Sunday as the
United States fired cruise missiles at an alleged .,
Iraqi nuclear weapons site on the outskirts of
the capital.
An explosion wrecked the lobby of the Al
Rashccd Hotel, where foreign journalists and
visitors stay.
Hotel workers said a woman at the hotel’s
reception desk died w hen the roof caved in.
Eight to 30 people were injured, workers said.
There was no immediate report from Saddam
Hussein’s goverment about damage to the tar
get hit outside Baghdad. American television
reports quoted the government as denying the
site was engaged in nuclear weapons work.
- (4
The biggest shock was to see
the state of the room I was in.
There was a door on top of me.
I think I’m just lucky to be alive.
-Wilkinson
NBC tape editor
-»f -
It was not immediately known whether the
blast at the Al-Rashccd was caused by anti
aircraft fire or an American missile.
An Iraqi army photographer displayed a
piece oi metal bearing the marking “Jackson
ville, Fla.”
In Washington, White House spokesman
Marlin Fitzwatcr said he was aware of reports
--
AP
of damage to the hotel, but he didn’t believe it
was damaged by a cruise missile. He speculated
an Iraqi anti-aircraft shell might have hit the
hotel. Twisted furniture and debris littered the
lobby. The hotel’s power was out.
“I just heard a whoosh, and it just exploded
righlin frontofme,’’Derek Wilkinson,an NBC
tape editor, told CNN. He had been in the hotel
room where NBC has its Baghdad office.
“The biggest shock was to see the slate of the
room I was in,” he said. “There was a door on
top of me. I think I’m just lucky to be alive.”
CNN showed the room, where a window
hung off its hinges and camera equipment lay
scattered.
Wilkinson said the blast “was so loud, I
don’t think anti-aircraft could be as loud as
that.”
The U.S. assault began at 9:30 p.m. in
Baghdad (1:30 p.m. EST), much like the night
two years ago Sunday when the Gulf War
began. U.S. networks provided live coverage.
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Bush knew of Iran-Contra secrecy clause
WASHINGTON — George Bush appar
ently knew in the early days of the Iran
Contra affair that a presidential document
stored in John Poindexter’s safe contained a
secrecy provision that hid the Iran arms sales
from Congress, according to Bush’s tape
recorded diaries.
The Nov. 15,1986, diary entry referring
to national security adviser Poindexter came
11 days after word of the arms-for-hostages
deals first bccamepublic in the United Slates.
At the time, the existence and where
abouts of a “finding,”—a document signed
by the president which authorized the Iran
arms sales—was a lact known lo only a lew
people inside the Reagan administration.
The Nov. 15 diary entry — among 45
pages of excerpts released Friday by the
White House — is the first indication that
Bush had this information about that aspect
of the Iran initiative.
Bush’s diary entry did not specify which
of three presidential findings he was refer
ringto.Onc was from Dee. 5,1985,ratifying
CIA involvement in a shipment of 18 Hawk
missiles to Iran the previous month. Two
others from January 1986 authorized future
arms sales to Iran.
Clinton-Gore caravan kicks off inaugural festivities
WASHINGTON — Bill Climon and A1
Gore rolled into the nation’s capital Sunday,
kicking off five days of inaugural pageantry.
But the mood of celebration and anticipa
tion was tempered by another military show
down with Iraq. Clinton said he was in
frequent contact with the White House, and
was briefed by his deputy national security
adviser within minutes of arriving in Wash
inglon.
In a symbol-rich journey, he and Gore —
and a 15-bus caravan carrying their wives,
staff, families and friends — made the 121
mile journey from Jefferson’s Monliccllo to
the nation’s capital. Thousands of well
wishers stood along the roadway, waving
flags and cheering the incoming administra
tion.
Bills, Cowboys persevere en route to buper Bowl
Through injuries and wild cards, through
historic comebacks and hostile road games,
the Buffalo Bills never flinched. They per
severed, and now they’re in their third straight
Super Bowl.
But Dallas, with its ball-control offense,
stands in Buffalo’s way. The two will meet
Jan. 31 at Pasadena, Calif. '
The Bills won the right to try for their f rst
NFL title with a convincing 29-10 victory
over the Miami Dolphins in Sunday’s AFC
championship game.
Meanwhile, Steve Young and the 49crs
couldn’t pull another comc-from-bchind win,
as Dallas pulled away in the fourth quarter
for a 30-20 victory at soggy Candlestick
Park.
Some troops to head home;
Somalia enjoys ‘quiet day’
MOGADISHU, Somalia — The U.S. Ma
rines will send their first combat troops home
Tuesday as the United Stales moves toward
transferring military control of Somalia to a
U.N. command, perhaps
within two weeks, a spokes
man said Sunday.
But the spokesman, Ma
rine Col. Fred Peck, stressed
that the Security Council
had not yet adopted resolu
tions necessary for the trans
fer or decided on a com
mand structure and the rules of engagement.
The announcement of the depature of a
battalion of 850 Marines, who have already
started packing, came on one of the quietest
days in Somalia since U.S. troops landed Dec.
For the first lime. Peck told the daily brief
ing: “I don’t have anything to announce today
(on fighting). It was a very quiet day."
In still another indication of improving sc
curily, a convoy of 25 trucks carrying nearly ,
400 tons of food set out for the first lime overi
400 treacherous miles to western Somalia. I
“The roads have not been used,” said Brenda
Barton, spokeswoman for the World Food Pro
gram. “It’s much cheaper if we can manage to!
move food by road on a regular basis. That
means we’re going to be able to gradually wind
down the airlift operation.”
Mohamed Farah Aidid, one of Somalia’s
most powerful warlords, predicted a 3-day-old
cease-fire among the country’s warring fac*
lions would hold.
“I believe it will be implemented correctly,”
he said.
Asked if he would hand over his heavy
weapons to U.N. forces as required by the
cease-fire agreement, he said: “We have al
ready confined these weapons to camps. We
will keep them in these camps. We will discuss
this. We have decided this should be done
gradually.”
Bosnians launch biggest attack yet;
scores of mutilated bodies found
C* a n a t r* i i /-i i
vkj, Dusnia-ncrzcgovina —
Yugoslav and Bosnian government forces du
eled with artillery Sunday in an escalation of
Bosnia'scivil war, while Bosnian troops fought
tocutoff rebel Serbs from their Yugoslav allies.
The cross-border shelling marked the first
lime Yugoslavia has acknowledged interven
ing in the war since withdrawing its troops
seven months ago from this former Yugoslav
republic.
A U.N. convoy, meanwhile, reportedly
reached a Muslim-held town in eastern Bosnia,
where scores of people have died from cold and
starvation. The convoy had been cutoff by Serb
militants for months.
Serb rebels said the offensive by Bosnia’s
Muslim-led government near the Yugoslav
border was the biggest in the region since the
war began. The casually toll was unknown, but
it was clearly a bloody battle.
At least 46 Serb fighters and civilians were
killed around the village of Skclani in south
eastern Bosnia, the official Yugoslav news
agency Tanjug reported.
Ai a ccmcicry in Braiunac, a town iwo miles
from the from, the cries of Serb women mourn
ing ihcir dead were drowned oul by explosions
from the fighling, said an AP reporter.
“Damn this war,” Darinka Pctrovic cried out
as she knelt before a cross bearing the name of
her son Dragan, 25. The Serb, whose body has
not been recovered, was killed in the Bosniani
offensive, which is apparently aimed at cutting
a corridor linking Serb-held areas with Serbia,
the dom inan t stale in w hat is left of Yugosla via.
The ccmcicry was dotted with at least 100
fresh graves. Some of victims were as young
12.
“I’m a professional warrior, but I have never
seen anything like that," said Col. Miladin
Prstojcvic, commander of Serbs in Braiunac. “I
had to hide from my soldiers when I fell sick
seeing the mutilated bodies.”
Prstojcvic said he saw bodies of Serbs cut
with knives and fed to pigs and female corpses
with breasts cut off. Serbian TV showed bodies
lying in the snow with their eyes gouged out.
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