Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Patricia | Lysk, a 1 third-year tj business l student, 1 speaks * with Keith f West, a . Peace 1 Corps I • represent- I atlve. I PHOTO BY ft FORREST b CLONTS/THE ■ GAMECOCK | Peace Corps CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 I “The best analogy is that you’re the leader of the parade,” he said. “Little kids follow you down the street. People follow you around and ask questions. People come knock on your door, ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ be cause whatever I was doing was better than what they were do ing, or something.” Still, West said being in the Peace Corps isn’t easy. “I mean, literally, I was like, ‘I want my mommy,’ but I told myself ‘I’ll just stay here one more day,’ and then ‘one more day,’ and then it was ‘I made kind of a commitment. I’ll just stay for one year,’ because it was hard work,” he said. “It was tough dealing with the little hel lions! taught.” West said his week was usu ally fairly structured around his teaching schedule, but that many Peace Corps volunteers, like Tanner, find themselves much more open. “In my village, time was pret ty much kept by the sun. I mean, they had a few words that they used to describe time, but there were no watches or anything,” Tanner said. He said his favorite aspect of the experience was integrating himself into the foreign culture. “It was speaking the lan guage,” West said. “It was speak ing Creole. It’s remarkable to be able to speak a language that less than a million people know.” Jessica Sullivan, a second year biology and pre-med stu dent, said she learned that Peace Corps workers are invited by the country they go to, so that work ers feel more wanted. “Peace Corps rocks,” she said. Sullivan and Sara Rowe, a sec ond-year history and literature student, took copies of the par ents’ information booklets, de spite the fact they are not cur rently eligible to join the Peace Corps. “Thanks,” Sullivan told West, laughing, receiving her copy. “My mom will die. Thanks.” Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockudesk@hotma il. com Random shot led police to kill gunman BY WOODY BAIRD THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MEMPHIS, TENN. - A shot fired at random by a suicidal gunman holding a classroom of college students hostage led po lice to storm in and kill him, an • investigator said Thursday. A SWAT team killed Harold Kilpatrick Jr., 26, on Wednesday night after a nine-hour standoff at Dyersburg State Community College in western Tennessee, about 75 miles north of Memphis. “He continued to fire shots af ter the police entered the room,” said John Mehr of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Two of Kilpatrick’s hostages were shot. One was in critical condition Thursday, and the oth er was listed as serious. Further investigation, including a ballis tics test, should determine if they were shot by Kilpatrick or hit by police bullets, authorities said. Police burst into the class room when Kilpatrick, who had earlier ordered pizza and soft drinks, suddenly fired his pistol, which was believed to be a 9mm semiautomatic. “At the time, he was not firing at (the hostages). He just fired a shot off,” Mehr said. Police said they were willing to keep trying to negotiate with Kilpatrick as long as he was not hurting anyone. Mehr said police had no way of knowing who or what Kilpatrick was shooting at. Before taking over the class of 13 students and one teacher, Kilpatrick left a note at his sis ter’s house that said he “wanted to kill some people and die today.” Smallpox CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 used as a weapon led the Bush ad ministration to launch a vaccina tion campaign for some 500,000 U.S. military personnel after the Sept. 11 attacks, and to order enough vaccine to inoculate the entire U.S. population if neces sary. President Bush also was vaccinated against the disease, which kills about a third of its vic tims. The negative smallpox find ings reported to U.S. intelligence agencies come nearly six months after the administration went to war to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction that Saddam long denied having and the military hasn’t been able to find. Smallpox was declared eradi cated worldwide in 1980. All sam ples of the virus were to have been destroyed except those held by spe cial labs in Atlanta and Russia, but some experts fear Russian sam ples could have gotten into the hands of hostile nations. iwo oi me six memoers oi Team Pox — whose existence and work hasn’t been previously disclosed — have left Iraq while the rest re main involved in other aspects of the weapons hunt, said the officers who described the smallpox pur suit for the first time. Though Team Pox is no longer operational, having carried out their work between May and July, their findings don’t dismiss the possibility that smallpox could still be discovered, according to the officials, who spoke on condi tion of anonymity. However, there remains little to pursue in this area now. “We found no physical or new anecdotal evidence to suggest Iraq was producing smallpox or had stocks of it in its possession,” one of the military officers said. When Team Pox searched key locations in Iraq, such as the de funct Darwah foot-and-mouth dis ease center, they found the facility in the same condition U.N. in spectors left it in seven years ago. In 1996, inspectors destroyed one fermenter, a storage tank and an inactivation tank at Darwah and poured concrete into the air conditioners while other equip ment, including filter pressers and centrifuges were tagged for mon itoring purposes. The smallpox team found cob- v webs covering much of the inside, although a CIA National Intelligence Estimate said the Iraqis were refurbishing the facil ity. U.S. satellite images had spotted trucks pulling up in the past year —an indication of renewed activi ty, the team was told. But investi gations on the ground revealed the trucks belonged to black marke teers stealing scrap metal and other parts around the site. In the run-up to the war, the CIA said chances were even that small pox was part of an Iraqi biological weapons program, according to the National Intelligence Estimate. Bush administration officials often cited smallpox when de scribing Saddam’s intentions — and continue to do so despite the lack of evidence. On Sunday, Cheney said two trailers discovered in Iraq could have been used to make smallpox. The vice president referred to the trailers as “mobile biological fa cilities” — a characterization that has been disputed by intelligence analysts within two U.S. govern ment agencies that believe the trailers were used to fill weather uauuuuo. Secretary of State Colin Powell, making the U.S. case for war last February at the United Nations, said Saddam “has the wherewith al to develop smallpox.” Despite those suspicions, Pentagon planners didn’t organize a specific search for smallpox when they put together a post Saddam weapons hunt compris ing hundreds of military person nel with expertise in missiles as well as chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. “There was some discussion about creating specialized teams but we didn’t have enough peo ple,” said Lt. Col. Michael Slifka, who planned the weapons hunt for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The original search teams, which disbanded when a Pentagon-led effort known as the Iraq Survey Group took over in August, comprised military offi cers trained in detecting chemi cal, biological and nuclear weapons. Those teams didn’t have an investigative capability and didn’t include experts in specific areas such as smallpox., Surprised by the configuration, a handful of American biologists and virologists sent to Kuwait and then Baghdad with little instruc tion except to help, set up Team Pox on their own. The team — which included two specialists wlwworked previ ously as U.N. inspectors' in the 1990s — wrapped up their work midsummer mostly out of frustra tion with the Iraq Survey Group. Those involved described missed opportunities caused by bureaucratic obstacles hampering the search effort. In several instances, the team couldn’t follow up tips because of transportation problems. The vio lence plaguing Iraq means such teams can operate only under mili tary guidelines and travel only with military escort. So their mobility is dictated by the military’s schedule and availability to move from them from one location to another. Some Iraqi scientists inter- - viewed clearly had the know-how and expertise to produce smallpox, honed through years of work with oimilor* trirncoc None of the Iraqi scientists said they had done work on smallpox or othef- viruses that could be used in biological weapons programs. U.N. inspectors suspected Iraq could have been working on small pox or already had it. There was an outbreak of smallpox in the country in 1972, and Iraq admitted it had been producing the vaccine into the 1980s. “From the onset the evidence was strictly circumstantial,” said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. inspector and the author of a re cent book on smallpox. “There was a lot of smoke but not much fire there.”' Tests on Iraqi soldiers captured during the 1991 Gulf War found that some had been vaccinated for smallpox. And Iraq admitted to U.N. in spectors in the 1990s that its bio logical weapons scientists worked with camelpox, a close relative of the smallpox virus. Working with camelpox would give Iraq a way to perfect tech niques for making smallpox without endangering the re searchers. Seawell’s Parking lot • 1125 Rosewood Drive Across from ‘The ROCKET’ at the State Fairgrounds. Live Band: EVOKA Music, Great Food, Drinks and Door Prizes. Souvenirs for the first 250 USC students in attendance. ® Sponsored by Alcohol & Drug Programs. Paid for, in part, with student activity fees. Actual time or event may change due to funding or programmatic decisions. For additional info, call 777-7130. Department of Student Life * Division of Student Affairs Studying's Hard. Eating Shouldn't Be. Publix. WHERE SHOPPING IS A PLEASURE* NOW OPEN: Publix at Rosewood Shopping Center 2800 Rosewood Drive, Columbia, SC 29205, (803) 806-8839 | Coupon ' ffective only on Friday and Saturday | ■ during University home football games. 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