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108TH YEAR I ©2011 THE MIAMI HERALD

Troops retake rebellious Syrian townBY LIAM STACK AND SEBNEM ARSUNew York Times Service

CAIRO — Syrian troops retook control of a rebellious northern town on Sunday, smashing what remained of an armed uprising af-ter thousands of residents fl ed into neighboring Turkey, barely escap-ing a force backed by tanks and he-licopter gunships, according to resi-dents and the Syrian state media.

For two days, the Syria mili-tary closed in on the town, Jisr al Shoughour, bombarding the coun-tryside and burning fi elds, until launching its fi nal push Sunday. As heavy gunfi re and explosions pierced the quiet of the countryside, small numbers of fi ghters who re-mained behind — including soldiers who defected, according to some of the men — fought a relatively brief battle with the Syrian military.

The government’s ability to crush the opposition at Jisr al Shoughour may prove a limited victory. In mili-tary terms, it was an uneven battle against a far weaker opponent. But the political repercussions are un-certain, analysts said. While the goal may have been to frighten other potentially restive communities into obedience, the government has been confronted with a problem of its own: Turkey has let thousands of residents to fl ee, giving a very public face to an uprising otherwise cloaked behind censorship and repression.

The result has been growing in-ternational condemnation, includ-ing Turkey, which has called the

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WEINER SEEKS TREATMENTAS CALLS FOR RESIGNATION GROW

BY LESLEY CLARK AND WILLIAM DOUGLAS McClatchy News Service

WASHINGTON — Embat-tled Rep. Anthony Weiner said he’s taking a short leave of ab-sence and seeking professional treatment, as a host of frustrat-ed Democratic leaders called for him to leave offi ce, saying the “sordid affair” has become a distraction for the party.

It was unknown how long the New York Democrat would take off, but it was clear that the break was not enough to satisfy Democrats who were hoping a coordinated show of disapproval would force him to step down.

“The behavior he has exhibited is indefensible and Rep. Weiner’s continued service in Congress is untenable,” said Democratic Na-tional Committee chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida. She was joined by Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi

of California and Steve Israel of New York, the chair of the Dem-ocratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who all issued stern statements calling for Weiner’s immediate resignation.

“Anthony’s inappropriate behavior has become an insur-mountable distraction to the House and our work for the American people,” Israel said. His predecessor, Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, echoed the call, saying Weiner’s “repeated violation of the public trust is unacceptable. He can best ad-vance the issues he fought for by resigning immediately”.

An aide to Pelosi noted that the congresswoman was aware of Weiner’s intent to take a leave of absence when she called on him to “seek that help without the pressures of being a member of Congress”.

The mounting calls for Weiner’s resignation came as

police in New Castle County, Del., opened an investigation Friday into Weiner’s electronic communication with a 17-year-old high school student.

Weiner, questioned Saturday by a throng of reporters who were following him as he ran er-rands, said he did nothing wrong. New Castle County Police in a statement said detectives had in-terviewed the teen “and she has made no disclosure of criminal activity, no inappropriate con-tact by the congressman”.

Weiner’s offi ce said the con-gressman left Saturday “to seek professional treatment to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person”.

It said Weiner would request a “short leave of absence” from the House “so that he can get evalu-ated and map out a course of treatment to make himself well”.

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DAVID KARP/AP

Rep. Anthony Weiner is questioned by the media near his home in New York on Saturday.

INDEXNEWS EXTRA..............3AU.S. NEWS ..................5AOPINION .......................7A COMICS & PUZZLES ..6B

JORDAN'S KING BOWS TO DEMAND FOR ELECTED CABINETS, 6A

IMF TARGETED IN CYBERATTACK,BUSINESS FRONT

BUTTON MAKES LAST LAP PASS TO WIN CANADIAN GP,SPORTS FRONT

Junrey Balawing poses for a Guinness World Records photo in Zamboanga Del Norte province, Philippines. Officials said Balawing measured 241/4 inches, about two inches shorter than the current record holder.

n Filipino named world's shortest man, 6A

BULLIT MARQUEZ/AP

A BITTERSWEET RECORD

Colombia tries to heal wounds with victims’ restitutionBY JIM WYSS jwyss@MiamiHerald.com

BOGOTA — Ever since he was run off his farm a decade ago, La-rino Nengarade has been scratch-ing out a living selling beaded necklaces on a grimy sidewalk just a few blocks from the presi-dential palace.

Friday night, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos ratifi ed a sweeping program that would give Nengarade — and an estimated four million Colom-bians who have been victims of the country’s civil confl ict — the right to seek reparations.

Santos has called The Victims and Land Restitution Law one of the most important initiatives of his fl edgling administration and key to ending a half-century-long cycle of violence. “If I accomplish nothing else, this will have made my presidency worthwhile,” he said as U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon looked on as the guest of honor.

A key part of the legislation would offer restitution to Colom-bians who lost family members or were forced off their land. While the amounts have not been fi xed, legislators expect them to range from about $10,000 to $20,000.

“This sounds like good news,” said Nengarade, a member of the Embera Chami tribe. “But they’ve made a lot of promises before and look how we are. We barely make enough to feed ourselves.”

The money is largely symbolic, said Guillermo Rivera, a congress-man with the Liberal Party who helped promote the legislation. But it’s also a realistic program as the government pursues a “mas-sive restitution policy that is also fi scally responsible”, he said.

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Luxury ‘protection dogs’ fetch top dollarBY JOHN TIERNEY New York Times Service

MINNEAPOLIS — Don’t call her a guard dog.

When she costs $230,000, as Julia did, the preferred title is “executive protection dog.” This 3-year-old German shepherd, who commutes by private jet between a Minnesota estate and a home in Arizona, belongs to a canine caste that combines exalted pedigree, child-friendly cuddliness and arm-lacerating ferocity.

Julia and her ilk have some of the same tracking and fi ghting skills as the dogs used in elite military units like Navy SEAL Team 6, which took a dog on its successful raid of Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan in May. In fact, Julia was sold by a trainer, Harrison Prather, who used to supply dogs to SEAL

Team 6 and the British special forces. But then Prather switched to a more lucrative market.

“Either rich people discovered me, or I discovered them — I can’t remember which happened fi rst,”

said Prather, president of Harrison K-9 Security Services in Aiken, S.C.

He and others in the high-end dog training business say prices

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A trainer works with Izzo, a German shepherd, at Harrison K-9 Security Services, in Aiken, S.C.

RAINIER EHRHARDT/NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE

Pentagon Papers to be declassified, 40 years after they were leakedBY JASON UKMAN AND GREG JAFFE Washington Post Service

WASHINGTON — The disclo-sure of the Pentagon Papers four decades ago stands as one of the most signifi cant leaks of classifi ed material in U.S. history. Ever since, in the eyes of the government, the voluminous record of U.S. involve-ment in Vietnam has remained something else: classifi ed.

In the Byzantine realm of gov-ernment record-keeping, publica-tion of a document in the coun-try’s biggest newspapers does not mean declassifi cation. Despite the release of multiple versions of the

Pentagon Papers, no complete, fully unredacted text has ever been publicly disclosed.

On Monday, the National Ar-chives and Records Administration will change that, as it offi cially de-classifi es the papers 40 years to the day after portions were fi rst dis-closed by the New York Times. In doing so, and in making the papers available online, the Archives could provide researchers with a more holistic way of understanding a re-markable chapter of U.S. history.

It could also bring a small mea-sure of solace to advocates of open government frustrated by what they

see as the overzealous classifi cation of important documents. They note that tens of thousands of the classi-fi ed diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks also remain classifi ed.

“The fact that the Pentagon Pa-pers were still secret is an embar-rassment to the United States gov-ernment,” said John Prados, senior fellow at George Washington Uni-versity’s National Security Archive, a nonprofi t research organization. “You’ve been able to read them for 40 years, but they’re still secret.”

Over the years, the unauthor-ized release of the Pentagon Papers has never been a fl awless exercise.

While the complete version runs to approximately 7,000 pages, the set leaked to the Times by defense ana-lyst Daniel Ellsberg had pages miss-ing and lines that were made illeg-ible during photocopying. (Ellsberg had to lug the volumes in batches to the offi ce of a colleague’s girlfriend and, once there, used a copy ma-chine that could only scan one page every few seconds.) Other versions were either heavily redacted or simply incomplete.

It’s not clear how many secrets remain within the documents be-ing released on Monday.

There might be small surprises

lurking within, including the names of those involved in the project who have not been previously identifi ed. But participants who are already known have reacted to the an-nouncement mostly with a shrug.

“I had almost forgotten about them,” said Leslie Gelb, who headed the task force that wrote the report and is now president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Retired Army Gen. Paul Gorman, a senior military offi cer who worked alongside Gelb, said, “I haven’t given them a thought in 10 years or more.”

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