The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, March 03, 1998, Page 2, Image 2

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    Senators: UN deal
in Iraq won't work
wAamiNuiuiN ; -
Several members of Congress said
on Sunday that the UN-brokered
agreement on weapons inspections
in Iraq won’t work. The only solu
tion to getting weapons of mass
destruction out of Iraq is to drive
Saddam Hussein from power.
Some of the lawmakers said on
Sunday news programs that the
Iraqi president should be tried as
an international war criminal to
show the United States is right to
bring about his downfall.
“It is our goal to remove him
from power because it’s patently
obvious to all observers that as
long as he’s there, we’re faced with
this enormous challenge,” Sen.
John McCain, R-Ariz., said on
NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Echoed Sen. Bob Kerrey, D
Neb., on the same program:
“We’ve got to change the objective
in Iraq and say that we’re going to
try to replace this dictatorship
with a democracy.”
Sandy Berger, President Bill
Clinton’s national security adviser,
agreed Sunday in a Washington
Post opinion column that the
United States should support Iraqi
opposition groups.
;: ^ He cautioned that past efforts
tb overflow a government by
iW- ItK C. *1,1.
Bjay Of Figs in 196 V, failed:
“Before we embrace lofty goals we
must be sure this time that we are
prepared for the ride.”
The deal worked out a week
ago between UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan and Hussein
on opening up Iraq’s presidential
sites to weapons inspectors to
avert what appeared to be immi
nent U.S. military action has been
met in Washington with suspicion
and, particularly among
Republicans, derision.
The 15-member Security
Council meets today to consider a
U.S.-backed resolution, submitted
by Britain and Japan, endorsing
the Annan agreement.
Critics contend Hussein has no
intention of revealing his chemical
and biological weapons programs
and will likely move weapons
before inspectors arrive.
Iraq’s ambassador to the United
Nations, Nizar Hamdoon, said Iraq
would give full access to the
ii
We ve got to
change the objective
...to replace this
dictatorship with a
democracy
Bob Kerrey
senator, D-Neb.
inspectors as promised. “We will
be sticking to our word,” he told
CNN’s “Late Edition.”
And Annan, in an interview in
the Time magazine edition pub
lished today, said the Iraqis are
fully aware after his trip to
Baghdad that if they break the
agreement, “the attitude on the
Security Council will be quite dif
ferent, and ... it may be much easi
er for the U.S. to get a consensus to
strike.”
He said he bluntly told Hussein
that his support around the world
is limited. Asked if that surprised
Hussein, Annan said, “It’s difficult
to know, because he shows no
emotion on his fa£0.’\ .
Chief weapons inspector
Richard Butler supported Annan’s
view of the agreement. On both
CNN and ABC’s “This Week with
Sam Donaldson and Cokie
Roberts,” Butler said the agree
ment should keep inspectors firm
ly in control. “If they keep their
promise, our access will actually
be improved,” Butler said.
Lawmakers said trying Hussein
at the war-crimes tribunal in the
Hague, Netherlands, should be one
means, along with supporting a
democratic opposition, of forcing
the Iraqi leader from power.
“If we were to make efforts to
topple him,” Sen. Arlen Specter,
R-Pa., said on CBS’s “Face the
Nation,” “we would certainly be
within our rights in a much broad
er way since he (would have) been
declared a war criminal and per
haps through a trial tried in absen
tia.”
Specter introduced a Senate
resolution today urging such a
trial.
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1996
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
Texas school of law
challenges ranking
Daily Texan
University of Texas at Austin
(U-WIRE) AUSTIN, Texas -
After plummeting in the U.S. News
and World Report rankings released
this month, the UT School of Law is
aggressively tracking down former
students to improve its employment
statistics for future rankings.
Law school officials held a
symposium Thursday to discredit
the drop from 18th to 29th in this
year’s ranking.
“We are taking a whole series of
aggressive steps to counteract this
outrageous treatment from U.S.
News,” said Brian Leiter, a UT pro
fessor of law.
The magazine attributed the
drop to the law school’s failure to
track employment status after grad
uation. The law school reported the
status of 61 former students was
unknown. Of those, the magazine
classified 75 percent as unem
ployed.
The law school is going to
debunk those numbers, said Leiter,
adding that the Career Services
Office is working to track down for
mer students.
“We are going to get on the
phone and get on the Internet, and
use whatever data sources we can
find,” Leiter said.
The numbers are needed by next
Monday for another magazine sur
vey, so school administrators will
work through the weekend if neces
sary, he said.
After compiling new numbers,
the law school will have a better
idea of the true unemployment rate
and demand U.S. News revise its
rankings, he said.
“If they decline to do so, we’ll
publicize that fact as well,” Leiter
said.
Leiter also encouraged students
to keep the school informed about
their employment upon graduation.
Law school deans from across
the country have criticized the mag
azine’s rankings and challenged the
accuracy of the rating methods.
He added .other publications
gave the law school a higher rank
ing.
“U.S. News doesn’t have it all,”
Leiter said. “The Gorman Report,
which ranks us No. 12, has now
been adopted by the Princeton
Review. Every bookstore that I’ve
been in has a Princeton Review
Gorman Report on the shelf.”
The law school’s career services
office has sent several letters to UT
law students and law firms criticiz
ing the rankings and explaining
why the UT School of Law didn’t
score well this year, he said.
But some law students said
Thursday the Career Services
Office doesn’t do enough to help
students outside of the top 25 per
cent of the class find jobs.
Others said the lower rankings ,
won’t hurt them in the job marker
“I personally don’t think this is
going to affect me,” said first-year
law student Patrick Ryan. “I’m
more interested in maintaining the
high standards of the school.”
Student support is important,
Leiter said.
“You’ve got to know the facts
about what U.S. News did... you’ve
got to be willing to share it with
your friends at law schools else
where and your friends who are
undergraduates thinking about law
school.”
i ik uauy universe
Brigham Young University
(U-WIRE) PROVO, Utah - Two
local lawyers are representing a group of
some 30,000 minors who are suing
tobacco companies for just over $2 bil
lion.
B. Seth Bailey and his father fLDelcyd
Bailey filedadass action lawsuit last month
on behalf of two eighteen-year-olds and a
seventeen-year-old. The suit asks for dam
ages to bepaidbyi9 major tobacco compa
nies of up to $75,000 for each of the 30,000
plaintiffs
“The suit is based on five specific
causes of action, or reasons, behind the
suit The plaintiffs will be suing for bat
tery, negligent misrepresentation, fraud,
negligence and strict product liability,”
H. Deloyd Bailey said
The plaintiffs got the idea to sue
when new research came out on how toe
tobacco industry specifically targets
minors in their advertising.
“They got upset and now they’re
going iu iry 10 give me tooacco industry
what it deserves,” B. Seth Bailey said
According to H. Deloyd Bailey,
there are currently 19 similar suits Bled
across the country, so it is not a new thing.
“The thing that is different about this
one is that the plaintifls in this case are all
minors. They all feel that they have been
affected by the tobacco industries adver
tising, whether it be them personally or
their friends and family” he said
H. Deloyd Bailey said that questions
will come up as to whether or not adver
tising is the cause of these kids’ prob
lems.
“People think that kidsjust do it to be
cool, which might be the case,” he said.
“What these kids are saying is not that it
wasn’t their fault; to than it is a question
of ethics. What these companies did was
unethical and wrong and that’s why
they’re suing.”
A class action lawsuit is when a few
named people represent a much larger
group of people who are all wanting to
sue for the same thing, H. Deloyd Bailey
saio.
“It is a difficult thing to coordinate
because there are so many people, so the
coordination is what we’re working on
* right now,” he said. ■ i
According to John Guynn, an attor
ney in Salt Lake City, Utah, the tobacco
companies are going to do all they can to
keep this case from going to court at die
state level.
“If they can get it to go to the federal
courts they will have a much better
chance of winning,” Guynn said.
H. Deloyd Bailey agreed and said
that he will do all he can to keep the case
in the state courts.
“If it goes federal, it will be a lot hard
er for us, but I still think we’ll win. We
don’t need a smoking gun to win this one,
but we’ve got one. The new research that
came out is all we need” hesaid.
H. Deloyd Bailey said that what he
wants to accomplish through all of this is
to alter the way that people behave and
the way that minors and the tobacco
companies see smoking.
Reagan was in decline, biographer says
ur i T'rvxT nn t a i /» .« <*< • •« « « « i I
imoninuiun — lwcivc
years after receiving unprecedent
ed access to a president at work
historian Edmund Morris is offer
ing a glimpse into what he think:
about Ronald Reagan.
Morris sees the 40th president
as an aging, declining leader whc
was not up to handling the great
est crisis of his presidency, the
Iran-Contra affair.
Morris, whose book on the
Reagan presidency is expectec
later this year, offered the viev
that Reagan’s decline started aftei
Reagan was shot and seriousl)
wounded on March 30, 1981, ir
the third month of his presidency.
“His thoughts became slower
his speech became slower, he
deliberated more, he hesitatec:
more when he spoke,” Morris saic
last week. “He lost his quickness
s\uu lur me rest ui ms presidency
it was a very, very slow and steady
mental and physical decline.”
Initially, he said, Reagan was
fully engaged with the paperwork
thatvcame his way, constantly
checking off points and writing
comments in the margins.
“But as the years proceed, you
see he is less and less interested,”
Morris said. “He was saving his
facilities, as old men do, for the
really important, vital events.”
Morris’ insights are of interest
because during much of Reagan’s
second term, the historian was
i given what no other presidential
biographer ever had - a “fly-on
the-wall” opportunity to observe
f history as it occurred in the White
House.
I With the former president
silenced by Alzheimer’s disease
ana unaoie 10 oner any accounts
of his own, Reagan followers have
been eagerly awaiting the Morris
book. The book was originally
planned for 1991. The publisher,
Random House, said it will come
out in the fall. Morris is the
author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning
biography of Theodore Roosevelt.
After the disclosure about the
sale of arms for hostages to Iran
and the unlawful transfer of the
proceeds to the anticommunist
Contra forces in Nicaragua,
Morris said, Reagan was at sea,
incapable of coping.
- “That was the first time I got
the feeling that he was not able to
handle anything that came at him
again,” Morris said. “He wasn’t
quite up to handling a crisis of
that dimension.”