Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 1

HQ I SPORTS, PAGE D-1 Flurry of trades leaves Penguins dizzy TV fl 1 If ifl fH A i si i One of America's Great Newspapers 50 CENTS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2003 VOL 76, NO. 224 31203 FINAL. THE ROAD TO WAR 1 i 1 i 1 v. 5 Yi TODAY Laurent ReboursAssociated Press British soldiers from a Royal Air Force regiment make their way through a cloud of sand during a practice air-assault operation near Kuwait City yesterday. WEATHER Chance of a shower.

High 48, low 36. Page A-2 STREAK ENDS AT 70 The longest winning streak in women's basketball Division I history ends at 70 as Villanova tops Connecticut, 72-68, to win the Big East championship. Sports, Page D-1 GOLDEN GATE It pays to get fired if you're a CEO. Golden parachutes for top executives averaged $16.5 million in 2001 and 2002, and that's just cash, not added-on perks. Business, Page C-l PIPPY ELECTED Republican John Pippy, below, currently on military duty, defeats Democrat Paul Air war, at least, may have begun already nn0 n-nf G0SQfi0DL1L7D iiw SI mm 73 Taking a stand on Iraq Might give Saddam 3 to 7 days beyond March 17 to disarm Here's where the 15 members of the U.N.

Security Council currently appear to stand on a U.S.-backed resolution that would give Iraq days to disarm or face war. Those who oppose such a resolution would give U.N. weapons inspectors weeks or months to continue their work. Nine votes are required to approve a resolution. Each of the five permanent members can veto a resolution.

Considered For U.S. Against U.S. resolution Leaning toward resolution U.S. position Cameroon Mexico swing votes Chile Angola Guinea United States Britain to come up with a compromise. But the White House rejected calls by some nations for a month or more of inspections, and administration officials were dismissive of a proposal floated by Britain yesterday to give Iraq 10 more days to show that it is complying with demands that it disarm.

Diplomats at the United Nations said the United States might back a plan that would give Iraq seven to 10 days from passage of a new resolution to come into compliance. Assuming a vote tomorrow or Friday, such a resolution would extend the deadline under the current U.S.-backed proposal by three days to a week. The maneuvering and the lack of consensus exposed deep strains within and among the Security Council members. Britain in particular was scrambling to develop a compromise that could attract at least eight or nine votes, driven in SEE IRAQ, PAGE A-6 France has threatened a veto Russia has Wreatenda veto China-might abstain Germany Syria Pakistan -would abstain Spain Bulgaria By Richard W. Stevenson with Felicity Barringer The New York Times WASHINGTON The Bush administration said yesterday that it would accept a short extension of U.N.

weapons inspections in Iraq beyond the March 17 deadline it proposed last week, but signaled that diplomatic efforts to delay or avert war had all but run their course. The White House said President Bush would force a vote by the end of the week in the deeply fractured Security Council on a U.S.-backed resolution giving an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader. White House officials said Bush By Peter Smolowitz Knight Ridder Newspapers DOHA, Qatar The air war over Iraq has begun. Fighter jets now bomb Iraqi targets almost daily, and the Air Force has dropped more bombs and missiles in the past three months than in the previous three years. The U.S.

Central Command has announced air strikes on nine of the last 10 days, targeting more than 20 individual locations. At least 16 of those were described as "military communication" sites. The others were a surface-to-air missile system and various radar systems. U.S. pilots yesterday used precision-guided weapons to bomb three unmanned, underground military communication sites southeast of Baghdad.

The attack followed two strikes Monday in southern Iraq. Since November, there have been more than 120 air strikes, compared with 110 in the previous 34 months, according to GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington nonprofit group focused on defense issues. "While, officially, no decision has SEE BOMBING, PAGE A-7 Post-Gazette; Associated Press Permanent members of the Security Council wanted a vote despite France's pledge to veto any resolution on Iraq and doubts about whether the United States can muster even the nine votes needed to adopt a resolution in the absence of a veto. At the United Nations, Britain and other nations worked frantically Blair battered in his own party for backing U.S. ten maverick legislator from the Labor Party.

"If there is no U.N. mandate and there is not a vote in the Commons before the commitment of British troops, then we ask the prime minister to consider his position as leader of the party." The clearest sign of the severity of Blair's predicament came late Sunday when Clare Short, an influential and often outspoken Cabinet minister, stunned the prime minister and his followers by threatening to resign if Britain joined the United States in a war in Iraq without a second U.N. Security Council resolution. She also called Blair's stewardship in the Iraq crisis "deeply reckless." It is a seeming token of Blair's current political weakness or at least of his desire to avoid the perils of Short's being cast as a martyr to peace SEE BVAIR, PAGE A-7 By Alan Cowell The New York Times LONDON For weeks and months, a seemingly unruffled Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain has weathered a gathering storm of discontent among members of his Labor Party who are incensed or at least unsettled by his lockstep alliance with President Bush. But recently, as Blair has acknowledged that Britain might join a war in Iraq without a new authorization from the United Nations, that unease has crystallized into something more ominous.

Now, in by far the worst crisis for Blair since he took office in 1997, the dissent has given rise to a startlingly open debate about his political future. "I don't think it is possible to exaggerate the degree of concern about the illegality of what is proposed," said Tam Dalyell, a longtime and of- You want U.SA. fries with that, mon ami? Gitnik to succeed Tim Murphy in the state Senate. Local, Page B-l SEEING RED The Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center plans to top off a major expansion with a red neon sign. Local, Page B-l DIRE STRAITS The airline industry warns Congress that a war with Iraq will cost it an additional $4 billion, 70,000 jobs and more bankruptcies.

Business, Page C-l QUITE ATRI0 Pitt, CMU and Duquesne are gathering this week for the first-ever U3 Festival, a celebration of musical and compositional talent of students and faculty. Magazine, Page E-l By John Murphy INDEX Bridge E-5 Lottery B-2 Business C-1 Magazine E-1 Classified E-7 Marriages Comics E-4 Movies E-3 Obituaries B-6 Editorials A-14 Post Your First Light B-1 Problems B-7 Horoscope E-5 Scoreboard Sally Kalson Sports D-1 Kids E-4 Television E-6 Local B-1 Weather A-2 Every Wednesday the PG's Paul Meyer answers your questions about the Pirates. Find his update only at www.post-gazette.com Questions about delivery or service? Call 1-800-228-NEWS (6397) 030SD0 Alastair GrantAssociated Press Tony Blair A man under siege Another transplant death is blamed on blood mismatch Thousands of samples unprocessed; state, county crime labs welcome aid U.S. targets DNA backlog By Teresa F. Lindeman Post-Gazette Staff Writer A couple of weeks ago, Brian Davis decided he'd heard enough about French opposition to U.S.

military action against Iraq. Since then, his Pickle Barrel restaurant on the South Side has stopped serving french toast it cooks up "freedom" toast instead. Want french fries? Only "U.SA." fries sold there. The Pickle Barrel, it turns out, is not alone. Yesterday, cafeterias at the U.S.

House of Representatives began selling "freedom fries and, yes, "freedom toast." Indeed, resentment over the French government's opposition to the push toward war has triggered changes to menus across the country. "This action today is a small but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure SEE FRENCH, PAGE A-l 6 By Denise Grady and Lawrence K. Altman The New York Times A year-old baby died in August at Children's Medical Center in Dallas after a surgical error destroyed her liver and doctors tried to save her with a transplant, but mistakenly gave her a liver of the wrong blood type, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday. The transplant error occurred, the suit alleges, because a laboratory mixed up the blood types of the baby's parents and incorrectly identified the father as a suitable donor of a partial liver when, in fact, the mother should have been the donor. Although later blood tests revealed the father's true blood type, hospital personnel did not notice the mismatch.

Mother and baby had Type blood; the father is Type A. By Jonathan D. Silver and Cindi Lash Post-Gazette Staff Writers In Allegheny County, hundreds of DNA samples that could help convict rapists and murderers are languishing in freezers, unprocessed by the coroner's forensic laboratory division because of a lack of funding for personnel and equipment. Statewide, a shortage of manpower has prevented the DNA of 8,000 convicts from being processed and added to a national database that can be Elumbed by investigators for nks between suspects and tainly use it," said Chuck Kritko, deputy director of the forensic laboratory division of the Allegheny County coroner's office. The money also would be used to expand the number of convicted criminals whose DNA could become part of a national FBI database.

And it would, for the first time, also include DNA from criminal suspects in at least three states who have been arrested and charged but not convicted. It is unclear, however, whether Allegheny County or state police DNA laboratories SEE DNA, PAGE A-12 crimes. All across the nation, even as crime-solving DNA techniques continue to evolve, frustrated forensic scientists are grappling with swelling backlogs of genetic evidence because they don't have enough money to buy needed equipment or hire and train new staff members. Yesterday, the Bush administration announced a proposal to eliminate those backlogs by asking Congress for $1 billion over the next five years to expand DNA testing and improve the technology. "Believe me, with the case backlog we have, we could cer 6 mQM6 8 SEE TRANSPLANT; PAGE A-9 I.