Flash Gordon Left Me The Keys

Cause and Effect

Shuttle test yields gaping hole in wing

In a dramatic climax to the Columbia accident investigation, a chunk of foam fired at high speed blasted a gaping hole in a key space shuttle wing panel yesterday, a result an accident investigation board member called "the smoking gun."

Spectators and reporters about 50 yards away gasped and shouted as the foam projectile tore through a partial shuttle wing mock-up at the Southwest Research Institute here. The briefcase-sized piece of insulation foam opened a roughly square hole measuring about 16 inches on a side, according to G. Scott Hubbard, the accident board member overseeing the test.

With the test, Hubbard said, "I believe that we have found the smoking gun. I believe we have established that the foam block that fell off the external tank [on launch day] was, in fact, the most probable cause, the direct cause of the Columbia accident."

Hubbard said the hole is roughly the same magnitude as the breach that investigators believe brought down Columbia. Based on an analysis of recovered debris and sensor data from Columbia, investigators have calculated that a hole at least 10 inches in diameter had opened in the shuttle's left wing to allow sufficient super-hot gases to penetrate the craft during re-entry and cause its destruction.

Investigators have long suspected that a piece of foam insulation that struck Columbia about 80 seconds after launch could have caused the breach, but they have been trying to connect the dots with a series of foam impact tests on wing edge panels and fiberglass surrogates.

Investigators believe the fatal breach opened at or near leading edge panel No. 8 on Columbia. In yesterday's test, a 35-foot-long compressed gas cannon fired a box-shaped piece of insulation foam at the lower half of a No. 8 left wing panel taken from the shuttle Atlantis. The panel, made of a composite material called reinforced carbon-carbon, had been used on 27 shuttle missions, comparable to the use seen by the same panel on Columbia. The foam was fired at the same velocity, about 530 mph, and believed angle of impact as the chunk that hit Columbia.

Hubbard said he was surprised by the extent of damage, which he said provoked in him a stomach-wrenching reaction followed by, "Oh, my God." As a physicist, he said, he is gratified the testing allowed the board to show "in a much more direct way" what brought down Columbia. But he added, "I know that it was the source of tragedy, so that makes me feel very sad." All seven crew members perished.

Columbia's crew did not have the ability to inspect the underside of the wing in orbit, and Hubbard said a launch camera that photographed the craft during lift-off had a resolution just on the margin of being able to see a 16-inch hole. No evidence of such an opening was seen. Another camera that might have spotted the damage was out of focus.

The test raises new questions about NASA's decision not to ask the Pentagon to use its ground-based telescopes or spy satellites to photograph Columbia while in orbit. Hubbard declined to speculate on whether such assets would have seen a 16-inch hole in the shuttle's underside. He noted it might have been difficult if the hole was dark against a dark background. John Pike, a military analyst with the nonprofit GlobalSecurity.org, said that, depending on conditions, the hole "was in the ballpark of what a satellite would have seen."

The hole created yesterday was in stark contrast to the relatively small crack that appeared when foam was fired last month at wing edge panel No. 6 from Discovery. But yesterday's test was designed to slam an entire edge of the foam against panel 8. Hubbard also noted that the carbon panels can vary as much as 70 percent in their breaking strength.

Hubbard declined to speculate on whether yesterday's test result might prompt a delay in NASA's plans for resuming flights of the shuttles by early next year. He said the board already has recommended that the agency have the ability to inspect and repair the shuttle's heat-resistant skin in orbit. But experts have said it will be difficult to repair the carbon-carbon panels aloft, particularly if the damage is as severe as that produced yesterday. An alternative is to have a crew rescue capability with another shuttle if necessary.

Iraqis not giving up the ghost as Hussein haunts U.S. efforts

American assurances do little to quell fears that leader could return

Saddam Hussein is still haunting the Bush administration.

Three months after Baghdad fell to U.S. soldiers and Marines, the Iraqi leader's loyalists are using the mystery of his fate to terrify Iraqis and frustrate cooperation with American occupation forces.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that's "unhelpful." Secretary of State Colin Powell concedes that the missing dictator has left "a degree of uncertainty in the country." Presidential envoy L. Paul Bremer says "it's important that we either catch him or kill him."

Mr. Bremer, who heads the occupation authority in Iraq, told the BBC on Sunday that Mr. Hussein's ghost is hampering his plans for reconstruction.

"There is no doubt that the fact that we have not been able to show his fate allows the remnants of the Baath regime to go around the bazaars and villages and say Saddam will come back, so do not cooperate with the coalition," he said.

Twice during the war, the military hit sites where Mr. Hussein was believed to be. But after each attack, there was no sign of the Iraqi leader or his two sons, Uday and Qusay.

For months, White House officials said his fate was of little consequence compared to the overthrow of his regime. President Bush insists Mr. Hussein's regime was smashed and will not be allowed to return. Some Iraqis are not so sure.

Hassan Mneimneh, a director of the Iraq Research and Documentation Project that archives the human rights violations of Mr. Hussein's government, said the Baath Party dictator controlled his country with fear. He said Mr. Hussein's reputation was magnified when he survived defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and then crushed a nationwide uprising.

"This is someone who has built himself into a god image," Mr. Mneimneh said. "The fact that he is not caught leads many to feel he is alive and directing these attacks on Americans. He's a spectre who haunts most Iraqis who are afraid of the nightmare of 1991."

Destroying backbone
Republic of Fear, a portrait of Mr. Hussein's psychological hold on the Iraqi people, was published under a pseudonym in 1989. Its author, Brandeis University lecturer Kanan Makiya, said recently the dictator had to be caught or killed for the war effort to succeed.

"It's crucial to destroying the morale and ideological backbone of the Baath Party inside Iraq and weakening the radical Sunni [Muslim] claim to power and critique of the occupation," he said.

Reports from Baghdad say some Iraqis suspect Mr. Bremer is using fear of Mr. Hussein as an excuse for the failings of the occupation authority. If Iraqis are shooting at U.S. soldiers or not cooperating, they said, it may have as much to do with confusion and mistakes by American officials.

John Pike, director of the analytical firm globalsecurity.org in Alexandria, Va., said the dismissal by Mr. Bremer of 400,000 members of the Iraqi military could account for much of the violence.

"I suspect it's unclear de-baathification policies, and that it's too many young men with too many guns as opposed to a pervasive belief that Saddam's lying low and will pop up in a few months when the Americans go home," he said.

Mr. Bremer restored the pay of more than half the dismissed army members last week, and 2 million Iraqi civil servants are also on the payroll.

Dual problems
Abbas Mehdi, an Iraqi exile in St. Cloud, Minn., who formed a political group opposed to Mr. Hussein's rule, said fear of him and missteps by the occupation authorities were both playing a role.

"It's very important to catch him, for psychological reasons," Dr. Mehdi said. "It would be a huge, huge relief for every Iraqi person. And those individuals fighting now on his behalf, this would be a great psychological blow to them.

"But other people are just frustrated with the U.S. soldiers and other things," he said. "No electricity, no water, no security. U.S. soldiers treating people very harshly in their homes. These things are very, very difficult for the Iraqi people."

Mr. Mneimneh agreed that U.S. authorities have to involve Iraqis in policing, self-rule and planning their own future - but he also puts the hunt for Mr. Hussein high on the list of priorities.

Mr. Rumsfeld said that reconstruction efforts are winning over more Iraqis every day but that the Pentagon continues to hunt for Mr. Hussein and his sons.

"Our first choice is to find all three of them," he said Monday. "I think that the absence of closure is unhelpful in two respects. No. 1, there are some who hope that they might come back, because they were privileged during the period they were there; they were part of the Baathist hierarchy. There are also those who are fearful that he'll come back or they'll come back.

"They're not going to come back, that's for sure," he said.

U.S. Willing to Send Troops to Help Liberia ... Going to Greenville

Washington reacts to international pressure to intervene in the civil war. The deployment would be small and short-term, sources say

After a decade of avoiding intervention in messy African conflicts, the United States now appears ready to deploy U.S. troops to strife-torn Liberia, according to U.S. and diplomatic sources.

The deployment is expected to be small, from 500 to 2,000 troops, and short-term, diplomatic sources said. In recent days, U.N. and African leaders have called on the U.S. to send peacekeepers to provide security to the war-terrorized population and help with humanitarian aid.

About three years ago, rebels began a campaign to oust Liberian President Charles Taylor, who won office in 1997 after a grisly civil war that left about 200,000 people dead. The current fighting has displaced more than 1 million Liberians.

The Pentagon has opposed sending troops because of other commitments. "The Pentagon is less interested, as it has plenty of forces deployed already," a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

But, after intense debate by President Bush's foreign policy team, the administration on Wednesday signaled its willingness to play a role in Liberia.

"The humanitarian crisis clearly calls for some type of response," said a senior administration official who briefed reporters.

Liberia is also a tinderbox for wider regional destabilization, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"As the president has clearly stated, where you have insecurity and instability and failed states, you're creating an environment in which terrorists can take root quite easily," the official said. "And so we're concerned about any region of the world that becomes lawless. And Liberia certainly has the potential to move into that category."

Officials at the Pentagon, State Department and White House insisted that no order deploying troops had yet been signed.

But administration sources said the goal was to define the mission and finalize arrangements before Bush formally approves the move, and to make an announcement before he heads out Monday on a five-day tour of Africa.

A small team of Marine Corps police is on standby in Spain for possible deployment to defend U.S. facilities in Liberia, Pentagon officials said. The team of 30 to 40 is designed to beef up security at U.S. facilities abroad where needed. The U.S. ambassador in Liberia has not yet requested the team, the officials said, but the Marines have been on alert since last week. They could land in Monrovia, the capital, within six hours of receiving orders to deploy, officials said.

The senior administration official denied reports that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is resistant to deploying troops to Liberia, or that U.S. forces are overstretched around the globe.

Still, one official said, "there's always concern, though, whenever you inject military forces in a situation, and [Rumsfeld] is looking at all the pluses and minuses."

The Iraq Factor
The equivalent of more than five of the Army's divisions are either in Iraq or assigned to support operations there. The Iraq occupation has stretched U.S. ground forces thinner than they have been in three decades, with at least one Army unit, the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, deployed for more than nine months.

But Pentagon officials said the idea that the military is stretched too thin to easily deploy troops to Liberia is "just ridiculous."

The number of troops that might be sent to Liberia "is chump change, that's way to the right of the decimal point," agreed John Pike, a military analyst who is director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington think tank.

"There are various different brigades and regiments of several thousand troops that are basically just sitting on their helmets at bases around the world that are just waiting to be told, 'Let's go.' They know that for the next six months, they are the ones that are on a short tether."

The State Department has pressed hard for the United States to play a stabilizing role in Liberia, which has ties to the U.S. dating back to the 19th century.

The favored administration compromise is a limited mission, with U.S. troops deployed probably no more than three to four months to help end a war that has torn apart the West African nation.

"The most careful judgments have to get made where the situation is not only involving a matter of clear military issue, but also where a humanitarian issue comes into play," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said. "And these are close calls. These are difficult calls."

The deployment, if it comes, would mark a policy shift in Washington toward a wider U.S. role in conflict resolution in Africa.

After the debacle in Somalia a decade ago, both the Clinton and Bush administrations avoided intervening as unrest erupted. The administration of the first President Bush deployed about 25,000 U.S. troops to Somalia, again under international pressure and also due in large part to humanitarian concerns about starvation resulting from a civil war.

But U.S. troops became the target of warlords, and 18 U.S. Army Rangers were killed in 1993. The U.S. then withdrew. The experience is often blamed for the U.S. reluctance to help end Rwanda's genocide in the mid-1990s.

Europe Taking Action
The U.S. desire to help in Liberia comes as Europe is getting involved militarily on the continent.

"The British have intervened in Sierra Leone, the French in the Congo. We have done what we can to train African forces, including Nigerians, for peacekeeping," a State Department official said.

"But West Africa's previous attempts to stabilize Liberia have not been crowned with success. We need to look at how to stabilize and bring peace, and if it's important to have U.S. forces be part of that, we're willing to consider it," the official said.

Still unanswered, however, is exactly what role U.S. troops would play and what the rules of engagement and the exit strategy would be.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell discussed options and details with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

In a push to ensure a cease-fire can take hold, Bush again called for Taylor to step down. He also expressed regret over the massive and growing toll on Liberians.

"The people are suffering there," Bush said Wednesday. "The political instability is such that people are panicking."

He praised the recent cease-fire agreement as a beginning. But U.S. officials said the truce is due largely to the need of both sides in the conflict to rearm.

The U.S. has about 146,000 troops in Iraq and 9,000 in Afghanistan, with an additional 3,300 in the Balkans and tens of thousands tied up in long-standing commitments in Germany and South Korea.

A deployment in Liberia, however, would be a token force demonstrating U.S. prestige, clout and involvement rather than any major military role, U.S. officials suggest. The lead role would still be played by the Economic Community of West African States, with an international component.

Adding Some 'Heft'
"The purpose is to add some heft to the force, and [the ] thinking [is] that would help bring peace more quickly," Boucher said.

Liberia was created largely as a result of U.S. actions during President James Monroe's administration, which bought land so freed slaves could return to Africa.

It was formed in 1822 by settlers, who named the capital Monrovia after the president. In 1847, it became Africa's first independent republic.

Editor Fired Over'Caddyshack' Quote

The sports editor of the Roswell Daily Record has been fired for fabricating part of a news story about a golf tournament in which he quoted a fictional character from the movie "Caddyshack."

In Colorado, a newspaper dropped a contributor's weekly column after an author in California alleged he had lifted whole passages from her book.

Gregory M. Jones was dismissed by the Daily Record on June 17, the day after his article about a Father's Day golf tournament at the Roswell Country Club appeared on the sports page, Editor Mike Bush said.

"He got a bunch of scores and wanted to make it more interesting," Bush said Thursday. He said he did not know if Jones attended the tournament.

He said the newspaper insists on accuracy and objectivity and "we don't tolerate anything less than that."


Jones, 24, said he was shocked by his firing and did not intend to deceive his editors or readers.

"It was tongue in cheek. It was sports. I was trying to be light and breezy. I was trying to put out a story that people might like to read," he said in a telephone interview.

Jones was hired in July 2002 as a reporter, was promoted to state-business editor in November and became sports editor in April.

Bush said the story contained three fictitious paragraphs referring to a Carl Spangler who claimed to work at the course. In "Caddyshack," Bill Murray played a golf course worker named Carl Spackler.

Jones quoted Spangler as saying he invented a new kind of grass for the tournament. The quotation in Jones' story is taken directly from "Caddyshack":

"'This is a hybrid ... of bluegrass, Kentucky bluegrass, featherbed bent and northern California sensemilia (sic),' Spangler said. 'The amazing stuff about this, is that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on the stuff.'"

Sinsemilla is a potent form of marijuana.

Bush said the Daily Record received "a couple of complaints" about the story. The newspaper ran a correction.

In Boulder, Colo., the Daily Camera discontinued Neil Rosenthal's column after the newspaper received the complaint from Sandy Hotchkiss, a California resident and author of the book "Why Is It Always About You? Saving Yourself from the Narcissists in Your Life"

Rosenthal, a family therapist, cited the book in his column but also used passages from it verbatim without using quotes, editor and publisher Colleen Conant told readers Saturday.

She said she met with Rosenthal last week. "Rosenthal admits to an error in judgment, but believes he adequately sourced the material he used from Hotchkiss' book because twice in the columns he referred to the book," Conant wrote.

Rosenthal acknowledged Monday that he broke journalistic rules by not putting quotation marks around passages used verbatim.

"I was attempting to honor her ideas, her good writing and her clear expression," he said. "There was no thought in my mind of using her ideas as my own."

India Sends Elephants to Spa

When the temple elephants of southern Kerala go on holiday during the rainy season, they get some of the same ayurvedic spa treatment that draws tourists to this region during the dry months.

The region is known for its "ayurvedic holidays" that lure people for mud baths, herbal body wraps, and special diets based on ancient Indian lore and practices to leave them refreshed and healthier.

The elephants who work at Hindu temples - carrying sacred objects during processions and posing for photographs - get some time off when the heavy monsoon rains keep most tourists away.

The state's temple authority gives the elephants a holiday at a special park, where trainers wash them in fresh ponds, give them extra doses of vitamins, and giant balls of special rice, peanuts, herbal seeds and ayurvedic paste.

"By this treatment the elephants look fresh and are enabled to work the whole season for the temple-related religious functions," K. Mainkandan, administrator of the Kerala state temple authority, said Monday. "Like humans, the elephants are get rejuvenated and stand erect with pomp and pride."

The 62 elephants have 172 keepers to look after them at the park at Guruvayoor, 217 miles north of the state capital, Trivandrum.

Most of them came as donations to the deities of the temples. Manikandan said that from this year, such elephant donations will have to be accompanied by 400,000 rupees (US$8,650) in cash to help pay for their upkeep.

Cabbie Ordered to Stop Wearing Elvis Garb

Elvis has not entirely left the cab stand. Cabbie Dave Groh last week lost his appeal of a $60 fine for violating the dress-code for taxi drivers, but says he's determined to continue his lighthearted salute to the King from behind the wheel.

Groh has given up his red Elvis outfit and has returned to black pants and blue shirt, but says he's going to continue to wear his Elvis-style cape.

"When you've got something going on that people love and feel strongly about, it's easy to get caught up in their passion," he said of the Elvis shtick. "It's almost an obligation I feel to do this now."

It all began three years ago, when a friend persuaded him to dress as Elvis while he worked that Halloween. The costume was a hit, so Groh started growing out his sideburns for an encore in 2001.

Groh bought three Elvis costumes and he started reading up on his alter ego, the better to answer questions. He makes a lot more in tips than he ever did as an ordinary cabbie.

But the costume violated the city's cabdriver uniform policy.

Now, he says, he'll comply with the letter of the law but he's going to stick with the cape.

"The cape's attached to a black jacket with a wide collar. They don't have any regulations about capes in there."