THE DAILY COLLEGIAN Interpol wants funds to avoid more attacks By Jocelyn Bored( ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER LYON, France Interpol. People hear the name and think of something put of a James Bond movie. But few really know what Interpol does. Since Sept. 11, the international police agency has extended its-hours around the dock, formed a task force, issued urgent "red" notices for the arrest of Osama bin Laden and his top deputies, and "blue" notices for infor mation on the suicide hijackers. But critics say the agency is too big a club to likely play a vital role in the fight against terrorism. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press at his Lyon head quarters, Ronald Noble, a former U.S. law enforcement official and the first American to head Interpol, said the agency is underfunded and underuti lized. He warned that the world could be missing an opportunity to thwart future terror attacks. "I can't say if we'd ever have been able to prevent Sept. 11," Noble said. But I can say this: if we don't put more resources into sharing informa tion on our most dangerous citizens, one day, a terrorist attack will happen thatAidn't have to." Noble says that as the only interna- tional police body, Interpol can be a crucial tool in tracking terrorists who know no borders. But that tool is being wasted, he says, because many nations lack the political will to share impor tant information. Some in the United States and Europe respond that when it comes to terrorism, they don't want to share information with countries like Libya, Iraq and Iran, all of whom are Interpol members. Interpol has an annual budget of only about $25 million, contributed on a sliding scale by its 179 member nations. Compare that to the annual budget of New York City's police department: about $3 billion. Of course, the world knows what the NYPD does: It sends police out into the streets to fight crime. What does Inter pol actually do? "People come in here and Say, 'gee, this isn't really what I expected,"' says Frank Spicka, head of Interpol's terror ism division, sitting in his tiny office and sipping a can of Perrier. "They're looking around for the Bat tlestar Galactica-type command cen ter," he says. "People think we're all trench-coated, clandestine secret agents who travel the world." Actually, Interpol's 350 employees pretty much stay put in their modern, glassy office building. INTERNATIONAL Sharon urges Peres to stay By Jack Katzenell ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER JERUSALEM Israel's foreign minister defused a government crisis yesterday, rebuffing calls to pull his moderate Labor Party out of the ruling coalition to protest stiff measures against the Palestinians. Shimon Peres led his Labor Cabinet ministers out of the room in protest early Tuesday before a vote declaring Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority an "entity that supports terrorism." The protest walkout came as the Israeli air force attacked Palestinian police structures in retaliation for two weekend suicide bomb attacks that killed 25 people. Labor members of parliament charged that their party, which had been in the vanguard of peace efforts, was now just a fig leaf for Prime Minis ter Ariel Sharon's hardline policies and should quit. However, most of the Labor minis ters opposed leaving, maintaining that their prdsence restrains Sharon and his hawkish allies, who would dominate the government if Labor exits. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben- Eliezer said, "I certainly do not think this is the time to leave the govern ment, and most certainly not when our struggle against terrorism is at the stage where it is today." Returning from a one-day trip to Israeli Foreign Minister Peres, center, speaks as Labor party caucus chairman Ephraim Oshay, tight, and Raanan Cohen listen• during a meeting of the Labor Party. Romania to attend an international anti-terror conference, Peres expressed displeasure yesterday with the way Sharon's government was behaving, but came out against a walk out. Instead, he scheduled a meeting today with U.S. peace envoy Anthony Zinni, said a Peres aide. THURSDAY, Dec. 6, 2001 I 9 Sharon urged Labor not to quit his broad-based government. He said the current wave of deadly Palestinian attacks makes national unity an imper ative for Israel. "The breakup of the unity goverri.,. o ment would be a victory for (Palestinian..,. leader Yasser) Arafat and nobody else," Sharon said.
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