Ultimatum

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi issued a "final call" yesterday to the rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to surrender his weapons and vacate the city of Najaf, as hopes faded that al-Sadr would soon comply with the terms of a peace plan. Hours after Allawi issued his ultimatum, heavy explosions rocked Najaf as U.S. warplanes went into action, pounding targets around the Imam Ali shrine where al-Sadr is holed up with his militia supporters. The explosions lit up the night sky in what witnesses described as the fiercest bombardment of the 2-week-old battle.

The chairman of US Airways said yesterday that its employees must agree to a third round of wage and benefit cuts worth $800 million in the next 30 days or the airline could be liquidated. Absent a deal with its unions, David G. Bronner, who runs Alabama's pension fund, the airline's biggest shareholder, said he would not invest any more money to rescue US Airways. Bronner's comments came as US Airways made a new contract proposal to its pilots' union, the only labor group with which it has opened formal talks.

A dissident director of United Industrial Corp., parent of AAI Corp. of Hunt Valley, has threatened to wage a battle for control unless management moves more aggressively to sell UIC and announce a replacement for its retiring chief executive, among other things. Activist investor Warren G. Lichtenstein said in a letter filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that he will nominate two new directors for the board of United Industrial Corp. at its annual meeting in October, unless management meets a long list of demands, including the ouster of its 82- year-old chairman.

A struggle between Mayor Martin O'Malley and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller has created a stalemate in the General Assembly over a date for Baltimore's next mayoral election. With less than a week left in the legislative session, lawmakers are unable to agree on moving the municipal primary from this September to a date closer to the November general election next year -- leaving open the chance of a 14-month lame-duck period for the city administration and City Council. The need to change the date of the primary election was prompted by a referendum approved by city voters four years ago to shift Baltimore's general election to the same years as presidential races.

CAMP PENNSYLVANIA, Kuwait - A full 14 hours after President Bush gave his ultimatum on Iraq, Spc. Michael Kowalsky had little to say about the historic speech. He didn't know a thing about it. "What did he say?" he asked in all seriousness as he settled in with buddies to watch Behind Enemy Lines on a DVD player. Kowalsky, 22, is a member of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, which could move behind enemy lines in a matter of days. But he spent yesterday like any other, working on trucks and pining for home in Wheatfield, Ind. His lack of situational awareness, to borrow an Army phrase, may be extreme.

As President Bush prepared the country and the world for imminent war in the Persian Gulf, his tone last night was measured, almost matter-of-fact. But his message was somber, and at times chilling. Bush said the coming invasion of Iraq, now almost certainly just hours away, could increase the risk of a terrorist strike on the United States and its citizens. But to wait any longer to overthrow Saddam Hussein, he said, would be "suicide." The president's words reflected as well his contempt for those countries that frustrated the American effort to pass a new anti-Iraq resolution in the United Nations - to the great embarrassment of Bush and with a resulting blow to U.S. leadership and prestige.

Stock prices soared yesterday, as war with Iraq appeared imminent rather than uncertain and investors gained confidence that a U.S.-led invasion would be short and successful. The Dow Jones industrial average, an index of 30 blue-chip stocks, jumped 282.21 points, or 3.59 percent, to 8,141.92 Every member of the 30-stock average rose except Altria Group Inc. In the past four trading days, the Dow has gained 617.86 points, enabling it to close above 8,000 yesterday for the first time since Feb. 21. Yesterday's gain was the indicator's biggest since Oct. 15, when it soared 378.28 to 8,255.

WASHINGTON - While France and Russia each threatened to veto a United Nations resolution authorizing war against Iraq, the Bush administration agreed yesterday to ease the terms of its ultimatum to Baghdad in a bid to win Security Council backing for military action. In a day of frantic diplomacy, the administration seemed increasingly resigned to having to go to war without U.N. approval. It portrayed its likely invasion of Iraq as a "moral" mission that would be conducted by "another international body" - "a coalition of the willing."

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has neared a compromise with United Nations Security Council members on an ultimatum demanding that Iraq disarm, U.S. and foreign officials said yesterday. The United States will submit a revised text for a resolution to the Security Council by midweek, with a vote likely to follow within days. "I expect we're looking at the end of the week" for a vote, said White House spokesman Sean McCormack. Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda said yesterday that Mexico, with a seat on the Security Council, helped broker compromise language he predicted would be backed by 14 of the 15 council members.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Northern Ireland's main Protestant party announced yesterday that it would end the Protestant-Catholic power-sharing government set up by the province's peace agreement unless the Irish Republican Army makes credible moves by January to disband and disarm. David Trimble, the party's leader and the first minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, emerged from a showdown with his 860-member Ulster Unionist Party governing council to say that he and his party members were "fed up" with the "dilatory and limited response" that Prime Minister Tony Blair and the British government gave their "very real concerns" about the IRA and the participation in government of its political wing, Sinn Fein.