Captured Iraqi soldiers are marched through the desert In Kuwait past a group of Marine Second Division vehicles on Sunday after massive ground offensive got under way.
20,000 IRAQI PRISONERS
Allied forces claim major gains
From Reuters-AP-CP-AFP
Coalition spokesmen continued to give optimistic reports today of the war to oust Iraq from Kuwait, while Baghdad said its troops were “harvesting the necks of infidel’’ aggressors.
Four U.S. servicemen have been killed and 21 wounded since the ground assault on Iraqi forces began Sunday, a U.S. military spokesman said today.
And LL-Gen. Khalid bin Sultan, said at the first Saudi briefing since the start of the ground campaign that “joint forces lost five killed in action and 20 wounded” during the past two days. Another Saudi official later put the death toll at eight.
The “joint forces” referred to by the general are Arab and Islamic forces.
French forces, meanwhile, have pushed more than 160 kilometres
City mill ‘safest’ in B.C.
Canfor’s Prince George Pulp mill was the safest in the province last year, according to statistics compiled by the Pulp and Paper Industrial Relations Bureau.
The mill had the best overall record among the 20 pulp mills in the province, recording 8.31 injuries per million man hours worked. It also had the lowest ratio of medical referrals, followed in second place by Canfor’s neighboring Intercontinental mill.
The two fared well nationally, with Prince George Pulp Finishing fourth in safety and Inter-con finishing sixth among the mills in their category.
Roy Bickell, president of Canfor, was in Prince George today to present the President’s awards for the safest operation within the company.
across the desert of southern Iraq, meeting little resistance from hungry, demoralized troops, a senior French military source said in Paris.
But Iraq had a different version of the fighting, saying today its forces launched counter-attacks and recaptured positions lost in Sunday’s Fighting. Military communiques said the coalition was being routed along the Saudi-Kuwait front.
“In pitched fighting lasting eight hours last night and this moming . . . the 3rd Army Corps succeeded in expelling enemy forces totally from all positions held before the attack and recaptured them,” military communique 62 said.
Officials in Baghdad dismissed as “a Western lie” coalition reports that up to 20,000 Iraqi soldiers had surrendered.
“After crushing the enemy’s on-
by Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Provincial governments could be the biggest victims in Tuesday’s federal budget.
Finance Minister Michael Wilson has already warned that federal payments to the provinces — which help pay for welfare, education and health care — are too big a target for his budget axe to miss.
“Those transfers continue to grow and we’ll obviously have to take that into account in the course of our broad budget planning,” Wilson said after talks with provincial Finance ministers in Toronto one month ago.
Wilson served notice that the provinces must shoulder a bigger burden in his fight against the federal deficit.
In last year’s budget, Wilson found almost a third of his savings, about $1 billion, by squeezing transfer payments to the provinces.
Opposition critics believe Wilson is trying to shift his failure to
slaught... the Iraqi army is pouring its anger on the heads of the aggressors, inflicting on them immense losses in lives and equipment,” Baghdad radio said.
Iraqi soldiers were “harvesting the necks of infidel, corrupt and impudent aggressors.”
But coalition spokesmen talked only of a harvest of Iraqi prisoners and destruction.
U.S. Marine Brig.-Gen. Richard Neal told a news briefing in Riyadh that coalition forces had destroyed 270 Iraqi tanks — 35 of them Soviet-made T-72s, Iraq’s best.
“Terrorism continues as the only Iraqi success to report to date,” Neal said. He said that of 600 confirmed fires in the Kuwaiti theatre of operation, at least 517 wellheads are burning.
“Additionally numerous facilities throughout Kuwait City are
control the federal deficit on to the backs of the provinces.
“I think this government for far too long has pushed the problem off on somebody else’s shoulders,” said New Democrat Steven Langdon.
“That kind of passing the buck, I just don’t think it’s acceptable to people these days.”
Taxpayers may flinch when Wilson introduces his budget, but they’ll wince again when provincial governments announce cuts or tax increases because they won’t receive as much money as expected from Ottawa.
And taxpayers will bc pinched one more time if municipal councils jack up property rates because they’re getting less funding than anticipated from provincial governments.
“What’s happening is the people on the front lines through their property taxes are having to pay for the mistakes of the federal
being systematically destroyed. Reports of atrocities of the worst sort are continuing to come in.”
Sultan accused the Iraqis of continuing to torture and execute civilians inside Kuwait, including killing people with axes and mutilating women.
“Unfortunately, they even try to force their own Iraqi young — very young soldiers — to kill other Kuwaiti children,” he said.
Sultan also said coalition forces now had about 20,000 Iraqi prisoners in PoW camps or en route from the battle front.
But Iraq unleashed another weapon today, firing a Silkworm anti-ship missile in the northern Persian Gulf.
British rockets destroyed the missile before it hit its intended target, the U.S. battleship Missouri, the BBC reported.
Iraq also fired two missiles at
government,” explained Liberal MP Joe Fontana.
“There is only one taxpayer, but unfortunately we have three levels of government hands in that pocket trying to take it for all they can,” he added.
The federal government will provide more than $36 billion to provincial governments this Fiscal year in cash and tax transfers.
“At 24 per cent of budgetary program spending, these transfers are simply too large a part of federal expenses to be ignored,” Wilson told a Senate committee last month.
His move to control federal payments to the provinces in last year’s budget only received Senate approval a few weeks ago.
And there is still a legal challenge from British Columbia to Wilson’s decision to limit federal payments for welfare in that province, Alberta and Ontario.
Israel but caused no damage, the Israeli military said. Baghdad said the missiles were aimed at the Di-mona nuclear plant in the southern Negev Desert. Four Scud missiles were fired at Saudi Arabia on Sunday but all were shot down.
The ground offensive on Kuwait was coupled with air strikes by tank-killing helicopter gunships on troop positions, a para troop drop behind enemy lines and attacks by warplanes and missiles on the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
Neal said coalition air forces flew 3,000 sorties in the past 24 hours, including 1,300 combat missions over Kuwait and southern Iraq. The air forces of Canada, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar helped those of the larger contingents in close-sup-port sorties.
Canada is expected to fly daily air-to-ground missions until the
Lois Boone’s nomination meeting is set for March 8 in Prince George, says Rick Olding, New Democrat constituency office assistant
Boone, now Prince George North NDP MLA, is challenging present Prince George South Socred MLA Bruce Strachan for the seat representing the new Prince George-Mount Robson riding.
Under NDP party rules, Feb. 18 was the deadline for any other prospective candidates to file for the NDP’s nomination in the riding, says Boone.
Last year, when it was supposed Premier Bill Vander Zalm would hold a spring or fall election, the
war is over and some of the pilots had mixed feelings about the role.
“It bothers me. I don’t want to go out and kill anyone, but it’s my job and I will do it,” said Capt. Emile Calderon.
Coalition pilots, reluming from over the battlefield today, said about 80 Republican Guard tanks were spotted moving south towards coalition forces.
“They’re Finally flushing,” said Lt. Col. Steve Turner, an F-15E fighter-bomber squadron commander. “They’ve got to do something — either that, or get killed in their holes.”
Asked about clashes with Iraq’s elite Republican Guard, Neal said “We have engaged some forces of the Republican Guards and (they) are enjoying the same sort of success” as other Iraqi forces.
But, he added, “They are being beaten.”
NDP had originally been planning to hold a nomination meeting for Boone the second day after the writ was dropped in order to highlight her candidacy. The decision now to set March 8 as the nomination meeting date was made in view of the virtual certainty of a spring election this year, Olding said.
The nomination date coincides with International Women’s Day. The public meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Holiday Inn. Boone will be joined by two NDP colleagues, Surrey-Guildford-Whalley MLA Joan Smallwood and Van-couver-Point Grey MLA Darlene Marzari.
Bulletin
OTTAWA (CP) — Liberal Leader Jean Chretien had surgery earlier toda/to remove a benign nodule from his right lung, a spokesman in his office said.
“It was found after Mr. Chretien went through a battery of tests last week in a normal checkup,” said Jean Carle, his executive assistant.
The surgery, peri'ormed at the National Defence Medical Centre in Ottawa, was described as a routine procedure. Chretien is expected to remain in hospital for about a week.
BUDGET DUE TUESDAY
Provinces could suffer as Wilson sharpens axe
Stage set for battle in new Robson riding
Liberals get big boost in B.C.
Copyright Southam News 1991
OTTAWA — Brian Mul-roney’s Conservatives have held on to their five-point gain in public support since the outbreak of the Gulf war, a new poll shows.
And the Liberals have edged ahead of the New Democrats to take the lead in a Angus Reid-Southam News poll for the first time since September.
The survey of 1,500 Canadians, conducted Feb. 12 to 20, shows the Tories with the support of 20 per cent of decided voters — the same as January and up five points from December.
The Liberals, who initially opposed the war but then threw their support behind Canadian troops once hostilities erupted on Jan. 17, gained three points to 35 per cent since January.
The NDP, which has consistently opposed the war, slipped two points to 33 per cent.
The western-based Reform Party has seven per cent support nationally, while the separatist Bloc Quebecois has three per cent. Another two per cent of decided voters support other parties. Twenty-two per cent are undecided.
A poll this size is considered accurate within plus or minus 2.5 percentage points 19 times out of 20. The margin error is higher when the results are broken down within regions.
Nearly all the Liberals’ gains appear to have come from British Columbia, where party support shot up 14 points to 39 per cent. That compares to 31 per cent for the NDP, 16 per cent for the Tories and 14 per cent for the Reform Party.
The poll, taken while Mulroney was warning Quebecers to beware separatist “dream merchants,”
shows the Tories with 31 per cent support in the province, up three points since January. The Liberals have 29 per cent, the NDP 23 per cent and the Bloc Quebecois have 13 per cent support.
However, when Quebecers are reminded of the fledgling BQ’s existence, the party’s support shoots up to 47 per cent.
Similarly, the Reform Party stands at 20 per cent of the decided vote in western Canada but jumps to 30 per cent — laigely at the expense of the Tories — when voters are reminded of the party’s existence.
Premier feeling pressure 2
Event is a family affair 3
Videos cost $40 million 6
Boxers win Games gold 11
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Ann Landers .... 10
Bridge..............17
Business.................8
City, B.C...........2,3
Classified .... 15-18
Comic...............19
Commentary...............5
Crossword...........16
Editorial................4
Entertainment ... 19
Family..............10
Horoscope...........17
International............7
Lotteries................6
Movies..............19
NaUonal..................6
Sports...............11-13
Television..........17
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