U.S. Is Paying European Teams to Hunt Stray Munitions in Libya

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is paying British and Swiss mine-clearing groups nearly $1 million to search for loose antiaircraft missiles in Libya and dispose of them, so they do not fall into the hands of terrorist groups.

The State Department’s hiring of the teams was prompted by fears that terrorists could use scavenged man-portable air defense systems, known as Manpads, to attack civilian aircraft around the world.

The Libyan military had amassed nearly 20,000 of the weapons before the popular uprising began in March. Most of them are still held by the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, but some bases and ammunition dumps in contested or rebel-held areas have been looted, and an unknown number of the weapons have gone astray.

The search teams, who will also keep an eye out for mines and other deadly munitions, will be allowed to work in rebel-held areas away from active combat zones. American and allied authorities have told Libyan opposition figures that their cooperation would be a factor in decisions about future aid, according to American and United Nations officials who are familiar with the discussions.

“From the U.S. point of view, it was an issue of paramount importance,” said Justin Baker, officer-in-charge of the United Nations Mine Action Service, which is overseeing the weapons disposal effort in Libya. “The Libyans seemed to get the big picture of what was necessary to present a credible international face.”

The disposal effort will not affect areas or munitions still under the Qaddafi government’s control. “I can’t imagine the U.S. can do anything about Qaddafi’s inventory until they defeat him or negotiate his exit,” said Matthew Schroeder, an arms expert with the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. “But even without that, securing any Manpads loose in Libya is a good thing.”

The Obama administration mentioned the anti-Manpads effort in its report to Congress this week defending the legality of its intervention in Libya. The report included classified documents detailing a “threat assessment of Manpads, ballistic missiles and chemical weapons in Libya.”

Most American and NATO warplanes have electronic evasion systems and can fly above the range of the portable missiles, but most civilian aircraft do not, and are vulnerable to attack. Nearly a dozen cargo and passenger planes have been brought down in Africa and Asia in the past decade using the missiles.

Reports have surfaced in recent weeks from officials in Algeria and Chad, and recently in the Russian news media, saying that antiaircraft missiles and launchers looted from Libyan government caches were already in the hands of a North African terrorist group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. American officials have yet to confirm any of those reports.

The two groups hired by the State Department are the Mines Advisory Group of Britain and the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action.

Officials with the groups said that almost all of the Libyan weapons depots they had surveyed in recent weeks showed clear signs of looting. Libyan opposition forces took anything they could use from the depots in the opening weeks of the conflict, they said, and there were few surviving inventory records, making it impossible to account for the depots’ contents or say what was missing.

“The ammo dumps we’ve seen are either partially destroyed or picked clean,” said Alexander Griffiths, director of operations for the Swiss group, which now has 35 disposal experts working in rebel territory under a $470,000 American grant. “We haven’t seen Manpads so far, and my guess is we won’t see many, because they’re such a high-value item. They would be the first items to go.”

The British mine disposal group located and destroyed two of the portable missile systems last week near Ajdabiya in rebel-held northeastern Libya, according to Kate Wiggans, a spokeswoman. Two other stray antiaircraft missiles were found in May and destroyed, she said. All four were SA-7s — Russian-made portable missiles that date from the 1970s. Experts say that many of the Libyan Manpads were probably of similar vintage, and that some may be too decayed to use.

The Mines Advisory Group has three workers in Libya but plans to expand to at least 20, operating with $486,000 from the State Department and $290,000 in British government aid, Ms. Wiggans said.

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U.S. Is Paying European Teams to Hunt Stray Munitions in Libya

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is paying British and Swiss mine-clearing groups nearly $1 million to search for loose antiaircraft missiles in Libya and dispose of them, so they do not fall into the hands of terrorist groups.

The State Department’s hiring of the teams was prompted by fears that terrorists could use scavenged man-portable air defense systems, known as Manpads, to attack civilian aircraft around the world.

The Libyan military had amassed nearly 20,000 of the weapons before the popular uprising began in March. Most of them are still held by the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, but some bases and ammunition dumps in contested or rebel-held areas have been looted, and an unknown number of the weapons have gone astray.

The search teams, who will also keep an eye out for mines and other deadly munitions, will be allowed to work in rebel-held areas away from active combat zones. American and allied authorities have told Libyan opposition figures that their cooperation would be a factor in decisions about future aid, according to American and United Nations officials who are familiar with the discussions.

“From the U.S. point of view, it was an issue of paramount importance,” said Justin Baker, officer-in-charge of the United Nations Mine Action Service, which is overseeing the weapons disposal effort in Libya. “The Libyans seemed to get the big picture of what was necessary to present a credible international face.”

The disposal effort will not affect areas or munitions still under the Qaddafi government’s control. “I can’t imagine the U.S. can do anything about Qaddafi’s inventory until they defeat him or negotiate his exit,” said Matthew Schroeder, an arms expert with the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. “But even without that, securing any Manpads loose in Libya is a good thing.”

The Obama administration mentioned the anti-Manpads effort in its report to Congress this week defending the legality of its intervention in Libya. The report included classified documents detailing a “threat assessment of Manpads, ballistic missiles and chemical weapons in Libya.”

Most American and NATO warplanes have electronic evasion systems and can fly above the range of the portable missiles, but most civilian aircraft do not, and are vulnerable to attack. Nearly a dozen cargo and passenger planes have been brought down in Africa and Asia in the past decade using the missiles.

Reports have surfaced in recent weeks from officials in Algeria and Chad, and recently in the Russian news media, saying that antiaircraft missiles and launchers looted from Libyan government caches were already in the hands of a North African terrorist group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. American officials have yet to confirm any of those reports.

The two groups hired by the State Department are the Mines Advisory Group of Britain and the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action.

Officials with the groups said that almost all of the Libyan weapons depots they had surveyed in recent weeks showed clear signs of looting. Libyan opposition forces took anything they could use from the depots in the opening weeks of the conflict, they said, and there were few surviving inventory records, making it impossible to account for the depots’ contents or say what was missing.

“The ammo dumps we’ve seen are either partially destroyed or picked clean,” said Alexander Griffiths, director of operations for the Swiss group, which now has 35 disposal experts working in rebel territory under a $470,000 American grant. “We haven’t seen Manpads so far, and my guess is we won’t see many, because they’re such a high-value item. They would be the first items to go.”

The British mine disposal group located and destroyed two of the portable missile systems last week near Ajdabiya in rebel-held northeastern Libya, according to Kate Wiggans, a spokeswoman. Two other stray antiaircraft missiles were found in May and destroyed, she said. All four were SA-7s — Russian-made portable missiles that date from the 1970s. Experts say that many of the Libyan Manpads were probably of similar vintage, and that some may be too decayed to use.

The Mines Advisory Group has three workers in Libya but plans to expand to at least 20, operating with $486,000 from the State Department and $290,000 in British government aid, Ms. Wiggans said.

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Gender Games: College Teams, Relying on Deception, Undermine Gender Equity

At the University of South Florida, more than half of the 71 women on the cross-country roster failed to run a race in 2009. Asked about it, a few laughed and said they did not know they were on the team.

At Marshall University, the women’s tennis coach recently invited three freshmen onto the team even though he knew they were not good enough to practice against his scholarship athletes, let alone compete. They could come to practice whenever they liked, he told them, and would not have to travel with the team.

At Cornell, only when the 34 fencers on the women’s team take off their protective masks at practice does it become clear that 15 of them are men. Texas A&M and Duke are among the elite women’s basketball teams that also take advantage of a federal loophole that allows them to report male practice players as female participants.

Title IX, passed in 1972 at the height of the women’s rights movement, banned sex discrimination in any federally financed education program. It threw into sharp relief the unequal treatment of male and female athletes on college campuses.

Over the next 40 years, the law spawned a cultural transformation: the number of women competing in college sports has soared by more than 500 percent — to 186,000 a year from fewer than 30,000 in 1972.

But as women have grown to 57 percent of American colleges’ enrollment, athletic programs have increasingly struggled to field a proportional number of female athletes. And instead of pouring money into new women’s teams or trimming the rosters of prized football teams, many colleges are turning to a sleight of hand known as roster management. According to a review of public records from more than 20 colleges and universities by The New York Times, and an analysis of federal participation statistics from all 345 institutions in N.C.A.A. Division I — the highest level of college sports — many are padding women’s team rosters with underqualified, even unwitting, athletes. They are counting male practice players as women. And they are trimming the rosters of men’s teams.

“Those of us in the business know that universities have been end-running Title IX for a long time, and they do it until they get caught,” said Donna E. Shalala, the president of the University of Miami.

Each year, institutions must report their male and female participation numbers to the Department of Education. And even though the numbers would not be used in a formal investigation, many colleges manipulate them to avoid bringing about one. The embarrassment that comes with a public inquiry or a lawsuit can motivate them to do what it takes to stay under the radar.

Shrinking budgets also spur universities to use these tactics, said Jake Crouthamel, a former Syracuse athletic director. “It’s easier to add more people on a roster than it is to start a new sport,” he said.

Yet football, the pride of many universities and a draw for alumni, rarely faces cuts. The average Division I football team went from 95 players 30 years ago to 111 players in 2009-10.

“Football is the elephant in the whole thing,” Mr. Crouthamel said. “That’s the monster.”

Advocates for men’s teams say roster management hurts their cause as well, because colleges tend to eliminate men’s sports rather than increase women’s sports to reach parity. Officials have also cut the size of men’s teams, compromising their competitiveness.

“I think roster management is almost a cuss word,” said Tommy Bell, the athletic director at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. He wants to restore a men’s track team, he said, but to do so, he must trim men’s spots elsewhere. “I hate doing it,” he said.

According to the most current federal numbers, women make up 53 percent of the student body at Division I institutions yet only 46 percent of all athletes. And that discrepancy does not take into account all the tactics used to boost the numbers artificially.

Roster management came under scrutiny last year when a federal judge ruled that Quinnipiac University in Connecticut had violated Title IX by engaging in several questionable practices, including requiring that women cross-country runners join the indoor and outdoor track teams so they could be counted three times. The judge found earlier that Quinnipiac had been padding women’s rosters by counting players, then cutting them a few weeks later. Quinnipiac athletic officials declined to comment, but in its appeal, the university said the judge’s conclusion that women were required to be on all three teams was not supported by evidence.

Russlynn H. Ali, the assistant education secretary who heads the Office for Civil Rights, which is charged with enforcing Title IX, said the Quinnipiac case was “a check on what some were doing, either knowingly or unwittingly.”

Karen Crouse, Griffin Palmer and Marjorie Connelly contributed reporting.