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Fire CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The building was equipped with standpipes, hoses located on the walls in the hallways and stairwells; however, none of the hoses had been activated, and no fire extinguishers were used be fore emergency crews arrived, Downey saitj. All the bodies were found on the third floor. A young boy was found lying close to the body of a woman, Greenville County Coroner Parks Evans said, along with two other women found in the hall. Two more peo ple—a man and a woman-—were found in separate rooms, Evans said. At least a dozen others were injured and transported to Greenville Memorial Hospital for smoke inhalation and burns and cuts received trying to get out the windows, Downey said. At least five of those victims were transferred to a bum cen ter in Augusta, Ga., said Beth Frits, the center’s spokeswoman. All were in critical condition, she said. Police officers, firefighters and even the desk clerk scrambled through the building trying to get people out, Downey said. The smoke was so thick, even in the stairwells, that many guests were afraid to leave their rooms, witnesses said. The fire alarm jolted awake Donessa Wilson and her boyfriend, as they slept in their fourth floor room. “I opened the door, and all we saw was smoke,” said Wilson, who was staying near the front of the motel, away from the side where the fire started. ‘*i ran back down to the other end of the building, and it was just getting worse.” Wilson said she closed the door and called the front desk clerk who told the couple to es cape down the front stairwell. “We couldn’t see. There were people falling all over each oth er. We just kept going until we saw some light.” The smoky hallways and stair wells were more dangerous than the rooms, Downey said. “If they would’ve stayed in their rooms and put towels under the doors... The people that came out ot their rooms, they didn’t have much of a chance,” the fire chief said. “They get the smoke filled in there, and they panic, and panic takes over for them.” Emergency workers remained at the scene throughout the morning as sleet fell across the Upstate. The Red Cross was helping the survivors who were relocated to a motel next door. State Law Enforcement Division and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents remained on the scene to investigate the cause of the blaze. “We couldn’t see. There were people falling ail over each other. We just kept going until we saw some light.” DONESSA WILSON N.C. RESIDENT WHO WAS SLEEPLING ON THE FOURTH FLOOR WHEN THE FIRE STARTED Safety CONTINUED FROM-PAGE 1 the Greek Village and the Colonial Center area, and that group will meet in the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center. A po lice officer will accompany each group. McClendon said she hopes the walk will make students aware of possible safety problems on cam pus. “We’re hoping that everyone will look at areas of campus with kind of new eyes, be cause you walk the same paths everyday, and you don’t really notice sometimes what’s there, but we’re hoping that people will be truly aware, so that we’ll notice everything we can,” she said. There will also be an evening shuttle promotion held on Thursday to encourage students fo ride the evening shuttle more or to try itfor the first time. “We’ve been kind of informed that the more students that ride the shuttle, the more routes there will be, and the more availability that these in turn will have; so we’re hoping that more students will ride it,” McClendon said. Members of the Safety Board will be on the shuttle that evening, and they will be having give aways to try to get more peo ple to ride. Critical Mass will be having its monthly bike ride Friday at 5:30 p.m. The group, which meets on the Horseshoe the last Friday of ev ery month, rides throughout downtown for about an hour. The / purpose is to try to encourage awareness of bicyclists and to promote its goal of getting bike lanes put in downtown. “We’ll be riding around campus and around town, and our ulti mate goal is to make it so that we would one day have bicycle lanes to make it safer every day to ride our bikes,” said McClendon, who founded Critical Mass last year. On Saturday the Safety Board and S.H.A.R.E (Sexual Health Awareness and Rape Education) will be holding a self-defense class in the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center room 115 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. A martial arts instructor will teach the class. This event is the only one in which spots are limited. There are 20 spots open to the public, and students who are in terested can sign up at the front desk in the SG Office on the sec ond floor of the Russell House. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu “We’re hoping that everyone will look at areas of campus with kind of new eyes...” KATIE MCCLENDON STUDENT GOVERNMENT SAFETY DIRECTOR Former top inspector in Iraq says Saddam kept no weapons BY KATHERINE PFLEGER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — The former top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq said Sunday he believes Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led in vasion of Iraq. David Kay said the challenge for the United States now is to fig ure out why intelligence indicat ed that the Iraqi president did have them. “We led this search to find the truth, not to find the weapons. The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist, we’ve got to deal with that difference and un derstand why,” Kay said Sunday on the National Public Radio pro gram “Weekend Edition.” Asked whether he feels President Bush owes the American people an explanation for starting the war on the basis of apparently flawed intelligence, Kay said: “I actually think the in telligence community owes the president rather than the presi dent owing the American people.” “You have to remember that this view of Iraq was held during the Clinton administration and didn’t change in the Bush admin istration. It is not a political ‘got you’ issue. It is a serious issue of how you could come to the con clusion that is not matched by the future.” Since Kay’s resignation Friday as the top U.S. weapons investiga tor in Iraq, Kay has said Iraq had no large-scale weapons production program during the 1990s, after it lost the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and no large numbers of mass de struction weapons were available for “imminent action.” Kay’s declaration that weapons of mass destruction did not exist before the war puts him in direct contradiction with the official Bush administration position. On Saturday, President Bush’s spokesman said the administra tion stood by its assertions that Iraq had banned weapons when U.S. and British forces invaded last March. The spokesman, Scott McClellan, said it was only a mat ter of time before inspectors find them. Secretary of State Colin Powell, in contrast, held out the possibili ty Saturday that prewar Iraq may not have possessed such weapons. “The answer to that question is, we don’t know yet,” Powell told re porters on a trip to Georgia. He said U.S. officials had believed Saddam had weapons prewar but had unanswered questions. Kay said he believes the American public and politicians now have to grapple with the ques tion of whether the Iraqi dictator posed an imminent threat. Given the reality on the ground, as op posed to estimates, some may reach different conclusions than they did before the war, he said. “I must say I actually think Iraq — what we learned during the in spections — made Iraq a more dangerous place potentially than in fact we thought it was even be fore the war,” Kay added. CIA Director George Tenet re placed Kay Friday with Charles * Duelfer, the No. 2 weapons in- | spector for the United Nations for about seven years. Kay said he left the position be cause resources were being shifted from the search for Iraq’s weapons stockpiles to counterterrorism and troop protection in Iraq. Kay said he now is going to turn his attention to weapons prolifer ation issues and the recent lessons learned. In addition to Iraq, he pointed out, the United States has been surprised this year by nuclear pro grams in Libya and Iran. In Libya, he said, the surprise has been the connections to Pakistan and Malaysia, where he said it appears plants were pro ducing parts. “It is in many ways the biggest 4 surprise of all, and it was missed,” " Kay said. “We need to understand our capabilities and what needs to be done to make the nation bet ter.” 14-year old female witness slain THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - Police said a 14-year-old girl was shot to death and her friend wounded after be ing targeted because their as sailant thought the slain girl had witnessed a killing the day before. Jahkema Hansen, 14, and an unidentified 12-year-old girl were found Friday evening in a town house not far from the U.S. Capitol. Franklin Thompson, 22, was arrested Saturday and charged with first-degree murder in the slaying. The shooting of the two girls was in an area where two men were shot to death last Sunday. Cmdr. Michael Anzallo, chief of detectives for the District of Columbia police, said the girl was killed because her killer thought she was a witness in the first of two shootings in the same area Sunday. Police said they did not believe the shooter was after the girl who was wounded in the leg. The slain girl was shot three times, includ ing once in the head. The girl’s mother, Judyann Hansen, told The Washington Post that police detectives had offered her daughter protection in ex change for information about that I killing. * She said police were clear about the danger witnesses face. FILE TObA\l to run for President, Vice President, Treasurer and Student Senators . Monday, January 26 Tuesday, January 27 Senate Candidates: $5.oo Executive Candidates $40.oo Russell House 227* 9-bpm Student Government Office .tOtOuf.sy.se. I ■ ' v * Gamecock 1 * jji|l Baseball Bash When: January 31,2004 Where: Sarge Frye Field * Q 1:15 pm. Scrimmage © 3:45 pm. CWS Pennant Presentation Q 3:50 pm. Bulls Eye Competition Q) 4:05 pm. Celebrity Softball Contest © 4:20 pm. Home Run Derby © 4:45 pm. Autographs / Video Presentation (which will be held at the Indoor Practice Facility) I FREE FOR ALL STUDENTS Come out and support your ranked Gamecocks! Sponsored by the Student Gamecock Club