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Pentagon gives opposition aid to rally support BY MATT KELLEY ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER WASHINGTON - The Pentagon hopes U.S. supplies arid other help will sufficiently unite Afghanistan’s disparate opposi tion groups so they can rout the Taliban and al-Qaida network, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday. And he disclosed that the United States had extracted southern op position leader Hamid Karzai and some of his senior fighters from Afghanistan and taken them to Pakistan “for consultations.” U.S. special forces teams are in side Afghanistan helping opposi tion groups with communications and calling in targets for U.S. bombers. The United States also is giving northern opponents of the Taliban weapons, ammunition, blankets and other supplies they need as they try to topple the ruling mili tia. “One would hope that by pro viding assistance and... by doing a good deal of damage to the forces they oppose ... we will see a greater degree of cohesion on their part and that we will see more success,” Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing. He also said southern leader Karzai had asked for U.S. help in getting out of the country and that the Pentagon was expecting to fly him back to Afghanistan when his consultations in Pakistan were finished. He was taken out of the country Sunday. U.S. jets resumed airstrikes Tuesday on Taliban front-line po sitions north of Kabul, the capi tal, as opposition forces claimed to have captured several villages near the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Also Tuesday, the Pentagon flat ly denied a report that a U.S. heli copter crashed Sunday in south west Pakistan near Afghanistan’s southern border. “There was no U.S. helicopter shot down in Pakistan,” said Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The airstrikes also have un leashed one of the biggest weapons in the American arsenal and the United States has stepped up its psychological war against Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban mili tia. The 15,000-pound “daisy cutter” bomb creates a huge fireball that incinerates everything within 600 yards. New American leaflets be ing dropped in Afghanistan pro claim, “We are watching!” and show pictures of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and a li cense plate military officials say belongs to a vehicle he uses. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder offered up to 3,900 troops to the campaign in Afghanistan but said there are no immediate plans to deploy ground forces. The U.S. requested help in com bating nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; medical ser vices; special forces; air transport and naval forces to protect ship ping lanes, Schroeder said. Parliament will make specific de cisions on deployment, he told a news conference. Rumsfeld, returning Monday from a visit to five countries near Afghanistan, said the number of special forces troops there had risen by 2 1/2 times since last week. He offered no numbers, but Pentagon officials said the total remained below 100. Earlier in New Delhi, India, Rumsfeld told a news conference that U.S. bombing is “improving every day,” helped by the addi tional U.S. special forces soldiers who are providing targeting in formation for airstrikes. Buildings reopen after anthrax testing 150 locations in Pentagon test negative for anthrax spores BY RANDOLPH E. SCHMID ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - Post offices and government buildings re opened as the anthrax threat edged into cleanup mode. “This has been one of the most difficult and sad times in postal history,” Postmaster General John Potter said Tuesday. A diplomatic mailbag sent from Washington to the U.S. consulate in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg tested positive for what was described as a neg ligible amount of anthrax spores, consular officials said Tuesday. The consulate’s mail was tested after a State Department’s mail worker in Virginia was diagnosed with an thrax on Oct 25. In New York, Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital reopened Tuesday, six days af ter it was closed by the anthrax threat. Kathy Nguyen, who worked at the primarily outpa tient facility, died of anthrax; circumstances of her exposure to the bacterium are still a mystery. At the Pentagon, officials said there was no indication that an thrax spores found in two postal boxes there had migrated to oth er parts of the military complex. The Defense Protective Service checked 150 spots in the Pentagon office, air ducts and air quality and found all negative, spokesman Richard L. McGraw said Tuesday. Kenneth Weaver, the chief postal inspector, told the Postal Board of Governors, that his in spectors are screening the mail passing through selected postal facilities and are following up more than 300 leads received from the broadcast America’s Most Wanted. The focus, he said, is tracking down whoever placed anthrax in the mail. Potter has estimated that the Postal Service could face in creased costs and business loss es totaling billions of dollars in the wake of the anthrax attacks. “Extraordinary expenditures will be required,” said Robert Rider, chairman of the Postal Service Board of Governors. “We strongly believe these costs should not be borne by our cus tomers through increased rates.” Postal chief financial officer Richard Strasser said the costs of adding security, dealing with the terrorists and lost business will total “billions of dollars” Strasser said the agency has already lost $800 million in re ♦ ANTHRAX, SEE PAGE 4 Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) walks through the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. The office building was reopened after anthrax was no longer an immediate threat, photo by harry hamburg/krt campus Hiring Freeze might be only first step CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Weingartner said the freeze was enacted to protect those al ready employed by the universi ty. He said it was better to turn down new applicants than to let employees go. Unlike Padgett, Weingartner doesn’t feel the freeze will have a big effect on his department. “The school of engineering and computer science has graded out fairly favorably university wide and is recognized as an efficient pro gram. Our particular department is a result of the merger of computer science and engineering. The uni versity has agreed to help the de partment reach a critical number of faculty,” Weingartner said. McKinney thinks the freeze is the first in a series of steps to han dle the university’s budget cuts. He said it was just a good man agement tool to get a handle on budget cuts, but there will be a number of measures to consider. President Palms is scheduled to give a list of recommendations to the board of trustees on Thursday* Nov. 8. His recommen dations might include depart mental budget cuts and freezes in purchasing and traveling. McKinney said there’s a good pos sibility they will look at revising student tuition for next semester. If President Palms recommends a tuition increase, the board of trustees must approve it. The de cision could be made as early as Thursday’s meeting. “Nobody likes tuition increas es, but you have to look at the quality of the product you’re re ceiving. ... I think most students understand, to get the quality of education they are paying for, that from time to time, things like this are going to happen,” McKinney said. The USC board of trustees ex ecutive committee will meet at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 8, in the Carolina Plaza Board Room to discuss mid-year bud get cuts. The meeting is open to the public. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com. Pop Quiz What can you get for only *39.99 a month? 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