Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 1

Star Tribune Iraq squeals about mspectionA5 Cowboys face character check at WasliingtoiiDl WYOMING'S STATEWIDE NEWSPAPER FOUNDED IN 1891 Board rejects United loan Airline sought $1.8 billion to avoid bankruptcy Cubin-Akin recount off By JEANNINE AVERSA Associated Press writer WASHINGTON United Air lines lost its bid for $1.8 billion in federal loan guarantees Wednesday, a major setback to the nation's second-largest air carrier in its efforts to avoid bankruptcy The Air Transportation Stabilization Hoard said that despite efforts INSIDE SEE RELATED STORY ON B4 to pare costs, "the business plan submitted by the Lgjpjfl sm-m 1 I mt rr WM mm m. By BILL LUCKETT Star-Tribune staff writer The Republican Party won a victory of sorts Wednesday when the all-Republican State Canvassing Board voted against ordering a recount of the U.S. House votes cast in Natrona County in the Nov. 5 general election. In doing so, the four-member board unanimously reversed its Nov.

13 decision to order a recount. The official results showed that incumbent Republican Barbara Cubin beat Democratic challenger Ron Akin by one vote in the county 11,182 to 11,181. Cubin handily won the statewide race. But the county results are significant since they determine the order in which party candidates appear on ballots in that county in the next general election. Wyoming Democratic Party Chairwoman Linda Sfoval criticized the Canvassing Board's decision to cancel the recount it had initially ordered.

"I'm very she said. "It's hard for me to imagine that the Canvassing Board voted to do this when the press and interested parties were all there and now only a week or two later has voted to rescind that." State Treasurer Cynthia Lum-mis, a member of the Canvassing Board, said she changed her mind about ordering a recount when Natrona County Clerk Mary Ann Collins explained that all ballots had been counted in the race. Lummis said she and perhaps the other board members were of the mistaken impression that some votes were not counted, because a recount of a tight legislative race in Natrona county turned up eight votes that machines did not count in the legislative race. But Collins told the board Wednesday that, although the votes in the legislative race were not counted on those eight ballots, the votes in every other race on the ballot including U.S. House were indeed counted.

"I thought they weren't counted in any race, including the Cubin-Akin race," Lummis said. Collins said there were no irregularities in the U.S. House race, so the Canvassing Board had no legal requirement to Please see RECOUNT, A 12 company is not financially Chicago-based United had asked that the government guarantee $1.8 billion of $2 billion private loan pack age. Without the guarantee and the loan, the airline said it would probably have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The $1.8 billion is the largest request received by the board, double the amount that US Airways was conditionally granted earlier this year.

The board was established by Congress last year to oversee a $10 billion loan program, part of an airline industry bailout after last year's Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The board, in its statement, said United's plan "does not support the conclusion that there is a reasonable assurance of repayment and would pose an unacceptably high risk to U.S. taxpayers." Two of the three board members Treasury's undersecretary for domestic finance, Peter Fisher, and Federal Reserve Board member Edward Gramlich rejected United's request. The third Please see UNITED, A6 Bush reinstates cash bonuses for appointees White House chief of staff reverses Clinton decision BRIAN KERSEY AP Christmas tree at Chicago's O'Hare International lay off 352 pilots beginning Jan.

6, 2003. A United Airlines crew member walks past a Airport. United announced Wednesday It will Sansonetti warns of complacency Addresses ag convention ministration appointees eligible for bonuses that could range up to $25,000. Card was White House deputy chief of staff and also transportation secretary in the last days of the first President Bush's administration, which paid nearly $400,000 in bonuses to political appointees on the way out after Bush lost the 1992 election. In 1993, Clinton criticized "extravagant payments made to departing bureaucrats and political cronies at a time when most people are tightening their belts." At the time of the bonuses, the nation was emerging Please see BONUSES, A12 By SCOTT LINDLAW Associated Press writer WASHINGTON The White House disclosed Wednesday it has restored cash bonuses for political appointees at federal agencies, a practice President Clinton halted after he concluded the first Bush administration used the system to hand out extravagant payments to "political cronies." White House chief of staff Andy Card approved reinstatement of the system eight months ago, but the administration did not reveal the move, which makes some 2,100 ad Sansonetti noted that four environmental groups had just filed a lawsuit against the Bush administration's decision to allow snowmobiling to continue in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

The decision reverses an earlier Clinton administration decision to ban the machines from the parks. "We'll be defending that (Bush) decision," he said. Sansonetti said he hasn't yet picked an attorney to defend Interior's decision. "I've got to find someone who's not already buried in cases," he said, noting that his 410 lawyers have 10,375 cases among them. Sansonetti said that with Please see SANSONETTI, A 12 administration would have another six years to accomplish its goals, Sansonetti said.

It didn't work out that way. "You need to act as if this administration has only two years left," Sansonetti cautioned his largely Republican audience of cattle and sheep growers and farmers. In the wake of Bill Clinton's victory over Bush, "it was a real scramble to get as much done as we could," before Clinton took office. There just wasn't time to accomplish everything before Clinton's inauguration, Sansonetti said. He warned against Republican complacency in the wake of last month's general election results, which gave Republicans control of both the House and Senate.

By BRODIE FARQUHAR Star-Tribune staff writer Tom Sansonetti, a leading Wyoming Republican activist and now assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division in the Department of Justice, urged ag producers to work as if the Bush administration has only two years left not a prospective six. Sansonetti spoke to the producers Wednesday at the Mega Ag Conference at the Parkway Plaza in Casper. When he worked for the Reagan administration in its last two years, Sansonetti said he was impressed by the focus on goals being accomplished before Reagan's second term ended. "We got everything done, on time," he said. Sansonetti contrasted that with what happened during the last two years of the George H.W.

Bush presidency. In the wake of the Desert Storm victory over Iraq, Bnsh was flying high in the polls with an 87 percent favorability rating, Sansonetti said. At the time, there were rumblings about Democratic candidates for president, including a little-known governor from Arkansas. The widely shared assumption was that the Bush At least 20 killed in Iraq battle 3 Domain aimed at kid-safe content By BORZOI DARAGAHI Associated Press writer SHASH1K, Iraq Kurdish militiamen battled Islamic militants believed linked to al-Qai-da in northern Iraq early Wednesday, and at least 20 fighters on both sides were killed or wounded, Kurdish military officials said. Sheik Jaffar Mustafa of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said attackers from the Ansar aUslam had seized two of his hilltop positions While some of the Ansar al Islam forces are Kurds, Mustafa said they also include Arabs who trained in Afghanistan and are believed to have ties to the al-Qaida terrorist movement of Osama bin Laden.

Mustafa said he believed his force had suffered as many as 30 casualties, but he could not give an exact figure since some of his men were on leave and his troops also had difficulty retrieving bodies from the battlefield. Later, a local commander, Massoud Kazem, said three or four of the Patriotic-Union forces had died and 11 were wounded He said he believed about 10 of the Ansar guerrillas were killed. Ansar launched its attack before daybreak, firing heavy artillery and charging the hilltop positions. Brown smoke could be seen rising from near the two hills at the base of the Suren Mountains along the Please see IRAQ, A 12 measure requiring automakers to install shoulder belts in addition to lap straps in the middle rear seats of new vehicles starting in 2005. Dubbed "Anton's Law" in memory of Anton Skeen, the bill became law as the boy's sister, Geneva, and mother, Autumn, stood by with a large framed photograph of him.

Car manufacturers say they have already begun to add three-point belts in the center Please see KIDS, AI2 By JENNIFER LOVEN Associated Press writer WASHINGTON Aiming to increase safety for children, President Bush signed legislation Wednesday toughening seat belt requirements and trying to create an Internet haven for kids. Surrounded at his Oval Office desk by family members of a Washington state 4-year-old who was killed in a car crash in 19, Bush signed a President Bush reaches to shake hands wftfi Uv Haugen of Sterling aftet' signing new legislation creating a kid-safe domain on the Internet. Today The grouch Letters, A9-A10 Markets, B4 Movies, C2 Obituaries, B3 Opinion, A8 Sports, 01 Going Places The Fourposter' a play about a marriage through highs and lows opens at Stage 01 December 13C1 Inside: Advisers, B5 Calendar, C2 Casper Area, A3 Comics, C3 Going Ptooss, CI Sorry United, but those poMOcal appointees an? resMy counting on their bonuses. 'id ISLMMkkd (ft Wyoming, Bl lot 307)2660560..