Serving Central Oregon since1903 75$
TUESDAY September10,2013
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COMING WEDNESDAY
bendbulletin.com TODAY'S READERBOARD
AUDIT
Vacation unit owners often ignore
La Pine SOCCer —Ready to kick off a new life as a varsity team.C1
Climate —In hopes of cooling the planet, scientists study
lodging tax
g,l. II'l,t,
volcanoes.A3
Jefferson County's stray CntS —Things are looking up
By Hillary Borrud
for the felines.B1
The Bulletin
Odituary —Cal Worthington, a car dealer and California cultural legend.BS
Burger showdown —Four over-the-top entrants from
the Los Angeles Times' recipe contest.D3
Appliance answers — When it comes to big-ticket items, is it better to repair or
replace? It depends on avariety of factors.DS Gabrieiia Demczuk/ New York Times News Service
Barge mystery —Carrying grain, unmanned and adrift on the Columbia.D3
in world news —Alonglost Van Gogh is authenticated as the real thing.A2
And a Web exclusiveIn struggling Egypt, a craftsman who used to work with
gold now must rely on ice. bendbulletin.com/extras
Sarah Harran, 6, who is from North Carolina and whose family is from Syria, runs under a Syrian flag Monday during an anti-Syria protest outsidethe Capitol Building in Washington.
•Tentative
support for diplomatic By Michael D. Shear, Michael R. Gordon and New York Times News
Foreclosure tactics come under fire By Jessica Silver-Greenberg New York Times News Service
Barry Tatum returned to his home in Chicago in December to find that his front and back doors had been torn from their hinges, leaving his possessions exposed to the frigid winds that whipped through his neighborhood. Terrified that he had been robbed, Tatum, who had fallen behind on his Bank of America mortgage, raced inside only to discoveran unlikely source of the break-in, he said: a subcontractor for a property-management firm hired by the bank. See Foreclosures /A4
TODAY'S WEATHER Sunny High 87, Low 52 Page B6
INDEX At Home D1-6 Crosswords E4 Business/ Dea r Abby D6 Stocks C5-6 Local/State B1-6 Classified E1-6 Obituaries B5 Comics/ Sports Cf -4 Puzzles E3-4 TV/Movies D6
The Bulletin An lndependent Newspaper
Vol. 110,No. 253, 30 pages, 5sections
& .4 Weuse recycled newsprint
: IIIIIIIIIII III o
88267 02329
As the U.S. hascontemplated airstrikes on Syria, observers say the regime has scrambled to movemanyassets into hard-to-attack areas or close to large numbers of civilians. Nevertheless, a number of obvious targets remain, most notably the regime's remaining air bases. TURKEY
solution Steven Lee Myers
EDITOR'5CHOICE
Syrian regime'smilitary assets
Service
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday tentatively embraced a Russian diplomatic proposal to avert a U.S. military strike on Syria by having international monitors take control of the Syrian government's chemical weapons. The move added new uncertainty to Obama's push to win support among allies, the American public and members of Congress for an attack. In a series of television interviews with six cable and broadcast networks, Obama capped a remarkable day of presidential lobbying for military action and a dizzying series of developments at home and abroad. Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said early Monday that Syria could avoid an attack by putting its chemical weapons in the hands of international monitors, an idea that was quickly praised by top officials in Syria and among some lawmakers in the United States. "It's possible," Obama said on CNN of the Russian proposal, "if it's real." Obama's statements opening the door to the plan, which appeared to offer him an exit strategy for a military strike he had been reluctant to order, came as support on Capitol Hill for a resolution authorizing force was slipping. Even some lawmakers who had announced support for it reversed course.
See Compromise/A5
• Aleppo
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LEBANON
The Bulletin
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delegation isn't ready to commit By Andrew Clevenger
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• Qregon's
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WASHINGTON — As the White House mounted a full court press Monday on Congress and the public trying to build support for a military strike on
Syria, Oregon's conAIR BASES + Regime active 0 Re g ime inactive 0 In dispute + Rebel controlled Syria has a large air force with air defense and ground attack capabilities. The Center for Strategic and International Studies has estimated that it had 365 to 385 combat aircraft at the start of the civil war, of
which about 50 percent are still in service. AIR DEFENSES (Not shown) The regime hasextensive air defenses, including more than 4,000 surface-to-air missiles and 2,000 anti-aircraft guns, principally focused around the eastern Mediterranean area. However, much of it relies on aging Soviet-era technology, which poses a limited threat to modern Western combat aircraft. RAND analysts have described Syrian air defenses as "strikingly incompetent." ARMY (Not shown) Two-and-a-half years of civil war have taken a toll on Syrian forces, with casualties and questions about soldiers' loyalty to Assad reducing the 220,000-strong army to one-third strength. Only those closest to Assad — the 4th Armored Division, Republican Guards and special
forces units — are believed to be at or near full strength. ~ A r mored division ~ 356 tanks, 198 infantry fighting vehicles, 45 howitzers, 12,500 soldiers*
Mec hanized division 228 tanks, 346 infantry fighting vehicles, 45 howitzers, 14,500 soldiers *
* Average size at full strength
Near Damascus: Republican Guard, 15th Special Forces, 4th Armored, 1st Armored, 10th Mechanized, 7th Mechanized
South of Damascus: 9th Armored, 5th Mechanized,15th Special Forces North of Damascus:3rdArmored Ne a r Homs: 11thArmored Near Aleppo: 18th Armored East Syria:17th Mechanized CHEMICAL WEAPONS The regime has had asarin stockpile for several years and is believed to have received outside assistance, possibly from Russia or North Korea, in developing other nerve agents. Reports have listed four suspected production sites — north of Damascus, in Hama,and near Homs and Cerin (not shown).
® NAVV The Syrian naval academy is located at Latakia, and it has two Petya III frigates at Tartus. The country's16 Osa-class missile boats and six Tir-class fast-attack craft are split between the two ports, while the regime has an additional eight Zhuk coastal patrol craft in the area. Sources. Center for Strategic and lnternational Studies, Global Security, IHS Janes's, Institute for the Study of War, International lnstitute for Strategic Studies, Nuclear Threat Initiative, RAND, The Washington Post
Mugs Scberer/The Bulletin
gressional delegation remained skeptical about involving the U.S. in Syria's civil war. President Barack Obama taped interviews with six television networks Monday, and plans to address the nation today from the White House on the need to respond to the Assad regime's reporteduse of chemical weapons on its own people on Aug. 21. Obama was scheduled to visit the Capitol today, even as a lastminute plan for Syria to turn over its chemical weapons stockpile to international forces emerged Monday as a possible alternative to military action. As of Monday, no members of Oregon's delegation had publicly expressed support for airstrikes against Assad assets. Several, including Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, remained uncommitted pending briefings, and three were solidly against military intervention. "I think the evidence that Assad has engaged in the barbaric use of chemical weapons is clear," said Wyden. "Whatthe effectsofa mi litary strike will be is not clear. I'll be getting additional briefings on this matter in the coming days, and I expect to learn more." See Oregon /A5
• Analysis, A5 • Stocksrise on news, C6• Obama'sspeech, A5
The owners of at least 84 vacation rental homes in Bend are not paying the city lodging tax, according to a recent audit. Members ofa city subcommittee said they want to collect up to three years of unpaid taxes, and the committee will present its recommendations to the City Council as early as October. The tax scofflaws account for fewer than half of vacation home rentals in the city. A total of 374 vacation rental homes operate in the city, according to Doug Jenson, senior vice president of client services for the firm that produced the audit, MuniServices LLC. The firm estimated the owners of the 84 vacation rental homes should be paying the city a total of
roughly $150,000 annually in lodging taxes. Victoria Smith, who owns Alpenglow Vacation Rentals, manages approximately 30 vacation homes, according to her website. "I think there are probably more than 84," Smith said of the auditor's estimate of tax scofflaws. See Tax/A4
Lodging tax A contractorforthe city of Bend recently
completed anaudit of how manyowners of vacation homerentals are paying the 9percent city lodging tax. 374:Total vacation home rentals in Bend 84: Number of vacation homes auditors believe
are not paying thetax $150,000:Auditor's estimate of how much lodging taxthe city
should receiveannually from the 84 properties
$3.9million: approximate total lodging taxthe city of
Bend collects annually Sources aty of Bend budget documents, Muniservices, Li C document and Visit Bend
American obesity, exported By John Norris Foreign Policy
WASHINGTON — With this summer's news from the United Nations that Mexico has surpassed the United States in adult obesity levels — one-third of Mexican adults are now considered extremely overweight
— U.S. foreign policy
has come into sharper, or perhaps softer, focus. Despite first lady Michelle Obama's continued emphasis on good diet and exercise, the United States seems secretly intent on fattening everyone else on the planet. See Obesity/A4