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123456 WORLD 4 CHICAGO Associated Press WASHINGTON The military is investigating whether U.S. troops were responsible for the death of an Iraqi prisoner of war, officials said Wednesday. The criminal investigation is the first involving the death of a prisoner in U.S. custody in Iraq. The British are investigating the deaths of two Iraqis who were under British control and allegations of torture of prisoners by British troops.

U.S. authorities found the corpse of a 52-year-old prisoner Friday at a camp run by the 1st Marine Division near Nasiri- yah, officials said. He had been held at the camp in southern Iraq since his capture May 3, U.S. Central Command said. Officials said the prisoner was not one of the 55 Iraqis most wanted by the Americans.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the death, suggesting there is evidence of a slaying. Military officials would not say how the prisoner died. They refused to identify him or say whether he had been cooperating with American authorities. Officials also did not say whether the prisoner could have been attacked by other prisoners. Death of Iraqi POW faces investigation, military says By Helen Dewar and Peter Slevin The Washington Post WASHINGTON Congressional Republicans on Wednesday spurned demands for a full-blown investigation into whether the Bush administration manipulated prewar intelligence on weapons programs, saying current oversight operations will suffice.

Key Democrats called the GOP plan and accused the administration of intelligence data, as the debate over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction which until now has focused on the White House, CIA and State Department found full voice in Congress. At a news conference that appeared aimed at quelling Democratic criticism, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said the committee continues to review intelligence documents on weapons and plans to focus on them in closed-door hearings starting next week. are going to complete a very thorough review of all the supplied by intelligence agencies, he said. seems sensible to do that kind of homework before you talk about a formal investigation of this or that or the other Roberts said some of the criticism of intelligence operations was politically inspired. will not allow the committee to be politicized or to be used as an unwitting tool for any political he said.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) said his panel has been holding hearings and reviewing evidence for some time. He joined Roberts and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss (R-Fla.) in rejecting a broader probe at this time. Some leading Democrats have demanded an aggressive inquiry to determine whether the intelligence cited by the administration to build the case for war against Iraq may have been inaccurate or skewed to serve administration interests. Bush assertions unproven In the months leading to the March invasion of Iraq, President Bush repeatedly said Sad- dam government had chemical and biological weapons that threatened the United States. Pressure for a congressional investigation has been fueled by the inability to find chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or to confirm manufacturing facilities in Iraq and by allegations from some intelligence analysts that they felt pressure from the Bush administration to tailor their assessments to fit official policy.

Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia, senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel, said the GOP plan to limit the inquiry to closed hearings and administration-supplied intelligence documents was inadequate and Committees should be able to request additional documents, interview officials, hold open hearings and report their findings, he said. WMD of mass and links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were the primary justification offered for the war in Rockefeller said. while the search for WMD continues, the American people need and want to know whether our government was accurate and forthcoming in its prewar Rockefeller and Roberts said they are seeking a bipartisan agreement on how to proceed. Sen.

Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said the Bush administration its intelligence on WMD to build public support for a war to overthrow Hussein. He said the practice threatens U.S. credibility in dealing with weapons threats in Iran and North Korea and called for a to learn how the administration handled what it knew. took a truth and they embellished Biden said. accusing them of doing is hyping it.

They created a false sense of Biden said the administration presented questionable and hard-to-sustain tie with terrorist and exaggerated capacity to use illegal weapons against U.S. troops. He said the administration also exaggerated how close the Iraqis were to building nuclear weapons. all too Roberts, the GOP chairman, said an inquiry into the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks faulted intelligence agencies for to put together a picture that seemed all too obvious after the Now, he said, seems to be a campaign afoot by some to criticize the intelligence community and the president for putting together a picture that seemed all too obvious before the Several Democrats said the committees were relying on documents volunteered by the intelligence agencies, but Roberts said the intelligence panel was seeking all relevant information.

Roberts, Warner and Goss said they heard from any intelligence officials complaining of undue influence on their work on Iraqi weapons. Warner said seen no evidence of tampering with intelligence information. GOP rejects outside Iraq probe Lawmakers: Bush prewar claims are purview later. As each helicopter settled on the deck, French sailors lifted out babies, hauled luggage, steadied the elderly and checked some evacuees with metal detectors. Relief at rescue made some giddy; guilt at rescue overwhelmed others.

feel so said Lucrecia Karinda, an 18-year-old Liberian-American. Her parents had put her on board the helicopter to accompany her youngest sister, a toddler in pigtails who sat on a blanket across from her on the crowded deck. have aunties and cousins Karinda said, alone in the crowd, a tear on each cheek. they George Williams, a Liberian, cradled his 13-year-old daughter, Chadi. She was shot in the hand in the days before evacuation.

By Ellen Knickmeyer Associated Press ABOARD THE FRENCH WARSHIP ORAGE Evacuees from 38 nations crowded aboard the rescue ship, some giddy with relief, others guilty over loved ones left disparate group of merchants, aid workers and missionaries, united by their salvation from the gun- wielding thugs overrunning capital. On the deck of the warship Orage, American aid workers stared out to sea and Lebanese merchants played cards. French sailors circulated among their 532 guests, tending to needs as they were evacuated from war- torn Liberia. Operation Providence, the French-led rescue mission, docked at the Ivory Coast seaport of Abidjan on Wednesday with 30 United Nations workers, 86 Americans, 18 French and people from many other nations, down to one lone Nepalese. Their ticket to safety: a foreign passport.

Behind them in Monrovia, 1.2 million residents and refugees remained. They were caught in the crossfire as President Charles Taylor, a former warlord at the center of 13 years of civil strife in Liberia, tried to fend off rebel troops bearing down on the capital. Taylor, elected in 1997, was indicted June 4 by a UN-supported court on war crimes for allegedly aiding Sierra Leone rebels in their vicious 10-year terror campaign. The evacuation of foreigners started as undisciplined forces preyed on civil- ians, robbing fleeing travelers at roadblocks or homes after storming them. As the French military used Cougar helicopters to remove evacuees from U.S.

and European Union compounds, explosions from the fighting boomed in Monrovia. Once airborne, Liberian girls in frilly clothes and hairbows aboard one flight clapped in joy, relieved after days of tension. British nun Margaret Pocock, in the same helicopter, stared ahead, lips pressed tight under gray hair. Pocock, who tended to children handicapped by polio and birth defects, had left a colleague behind. Across from Pocock, Liberian-American Olivia Clarke clutched her precious belongings: her daughters and two lace-trimmed photo albums.

got all my pictures, all my high school pictures. All we Clarke said Chadi, who born in the United States, could flee as a U.S. citizen; four other children have foreign citizenship and had to stay. left all the rest of my family he said. feel very terrible, very truly terrible, to have left them to that French sailors gave up their bunks so women and children could have beds.

The bakeries turned out fresh croissants for their breakfast guests. Capt. Claude security officer, dismissed any irony in the French rescue of Americans from an American-founded nation, considering Franco-American tensions over the Iraq war. have a long history of friendship, he asked. Africa one day it is the French evacuating the Americans, the next day the Americans evacuating the French ship rescues 532 AP photo by Ben Curtis French sailor Severe Laurence carries a Liberian evacuee after reaching their haven Wednesday.

EVACUATION OF FOREIGNERS By Jonathan Paye-Layleh Associated Press MONROVIA, Liberia With rebels bearing down on the capital, Liberian President Charles Taylor told international mediators Wednesday that he was ready to resume negotiations to end fighting that has left bodies and charred vehicles littering the northwestern outskirts of Monrovia. Insurgents threatening to overwhelm last stronghold said they, too, were willing to stop fighting, but only if government forces stop attacking them. think it is a good sign that both sides are pulling back, halting hostilities so that negotiations for a comprehensive peace agreement can be Ghanaian Foreign Minister Nana Akuffo Addo said after a five-minute meet- ing with Taylor. the sake of the people of this country, these hostilities must Liberian Defense Minister Daniel Chea later flew back to Ghana with Akuffo Addo and Mohamed Ibn Chambas, executive secretary of the regional bloc mediating the talks. Representatives of the two rebel movements already were in Ghana, Akuffo Addo said.

The rebel offensive is the most intense yet in a three-year campaign to drive out Taylor, who now controls little territory outside the capital. Fighting raged for days on edges but subsided Tuesday afternoon. There were no immediate reports of clashes Wednesday. The government said it had repelled the latest in a string of rebel pushes into the city, which is filled with refugees. In the northwestern suburb of Brewerville, burned-out vehicles and ammunition casings littered the streets.

Decomposing bodies at least one of which had been decapitated lay along the highway. Pro-government fighters fired their guns into the air in celebration. who says no more Taylor will be treated like a commanding officer Gen. Benjamin Yeaten said. is like our father There is no one now to lead this country besides President Afew fearful civilians crept back to their ransacked, bullet- scarred homes to survey the damage.

Others, trapped behind rebel lines during the fighting, took advantage of the lull to hurry across the St. River bridge into Monrovia. Aspokesman for the UN World Food Program said the humanitarian situation inside Monrovia is now and Tens of thousands of people who have fled the fighting have taken refuge in schools, churches and sports arena, Ramin Rafirasme said. Liberians fear a bloody battle for Monrovia, a city of 1mil- lion repeatedly overrun during seven years of factional fighting that ended in 1996. Taylor emerged as the strongest war- lord from that conflict and won presidential elections the next year.

Athree-year rebel offensive gained momentum last week when a joint UN-Sierra Leone court charged Taylor with war crimes for allegedly aiding Sierra notorious rebels. Gunfire and explosions shook the outskirts of the city even after an announcement by the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy insurgents that they were suspending hostilities to pursue talks with the government and anewly emerged rebel faction based in southeast. French helicopters swooped in Monday to fly 535 fleeing Americans, Europeans and other foreign nationals to a French warship off the coast of Liberia. They arrived Wednesday morning in Abidjan, Ivory Coast which itself is struggling to overcome a nine- month civil war. France has a heavy presence in West Africa, where many countries were once French colonies.

Liberia leader talks of truce Rebels push near Taylor stronghold in frantic capital Associated Press LONDON Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix accused U.S. officials of mounting a smear campaign against him in a new interview published Wednesday. The normally cool Swede, who is due to retire from his UN post at the end of the month, also said U.S. officials pressured him to use more damning language when reporting on alleged weapons programs. and large my relations with the U.S.

were Blix was quoted as saying in Guardian newspaper. toward the end the administration leaned on American and British troops in Iraq have failed to find weapons of mass destruction, after visiting more than 230 suspected sites. The lack of hard evidence has put pressure on Washington and London because Saddam alleged possession of banned weapons was the main U.S. and British justification for invading Iraq. Blix, who oversaw a fruitless search for Iraqi weapons for 3 1 2 months, said that a lower he was probably the target of a smear campaign by U.S.

officials tryingto discredit him. have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the he was quoted as telling The Guardian. that I cared very much. It was like a mosquito bite in the evening that is there in the morning, an Blix, who turns 75 later this month, did not specify what were said about him.

But previously he alleged that U.S. officials tried to undermine his inspection team by telling the media he withheld information about an Iraqi drone from the Security Council. He said the U.S. claim was unfair. He said he believed some officials in the Bush administration were suspicious of the United Nations in general.

are people in this administration who say they care if the UN sinks under the East River New and other crude he was quoted as saying. Blix also told The Guardian that Iraqi officials spread rumors saying he to Washington every two weeks to pick up Although UN inspectors found no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons in Iraq, Blix said he remained about whether Saddam Hussein possessed such arms shortly before the Iraq war. cannot exclude that they may find he said of coalition forces seeking banned weapons in Iraq. true that the Iraqis misbehaved and had no credibility, but that necessarily mean that they were in the AP photo by David Karp Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix discusses his tenure Wednesday in New York as he prepares to retire at the end of June. Blix accuses U.S.

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