Baghdad falls, War not over: Yesterday, Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, fell to Allied forces with little resistance from Iraqi forces loyal to Saddam Hussein. Throughout the city, Iraqis could be seen defacing icons that honored Hussein, including one large statue that was pulled from its pedestal by Iraqi citizens. However, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield warned that the war was not over, as troops continue to confront remnants of the Iraqi army and special operations forces locate Hussein loyalists using “the cash reward system.” Rumsfield said, “We will not stop until Saddam Hussein’s regime has been removed from every corner of that country.” If Hussein, his sons and aides are still alive, they have yet to be found. Also, Allied forces have not yet located and destroyed the chemical and biological weapons or their laboratories that the Bush administration has “cited as a primary motive for war.” Now, troops work to keep order as they try to bring aide to the Iraqi people.
Protestor database to be destroyed: Since Feb. 15, the New York Police Department has been questioning antiwar protestors about their previous political activity and recording that information in a database. The Police Department utilized a debriefing form that questioned protestors about their schooling, membership in organizations and participation in other protests to create the database. However, yesterday, the police department issued a statement saying they would destroy the database and discontinue use of the debriefing form. The action came after Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and his deputy commissioner for intelligence, David Cohen, a former top Central Intelligence Agency official, became aware of the form’s existence. Michael O’Looney, a spokesman for the department, said, “When it was brought to their attention, they took a look at it, decided some of those questions were not critical to our needs and decided to end its use.” The practice has received great criticism as some protest that the practice was violating First Amendment rights of the protestors. O’Looney said that in the future, the department will continue to ask protestors what groups they are affiliated with, but they will only keep a tally of these groups instead of the protestor’s name. He said that this would aid the department in knowing how many officers to assign to future protests by these groups.
Michigan statute struck down: Recently, a Cincinnati appeals court struck down a Michigan statute that required parents who are welfare applicants and recipients to be drug tested. The law, formulated in 1996, made all welfare applicants subject to testing, and approximately 20 percent of applicants would be randomly tested every six months. Judge Victoria A. Roberts said that such testing violated the Constitutional requirements for “suspicionless testing” which would require the test to look for threats to public safety. The decision, issued Monday, was evenly split between the 12 judges, so Robert’s decision was affirmed according to court rules.
Data compiled by Paige Wassel with information from the New York Times.