Global Hoax

Eiland: Iran leadership poses threat
David Horovitz, THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 24, 2006

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if he ever became the supreme decision maker in his country, would "sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel," Giora Eiland, Israel's former national security adviser, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

At present, Eiland stressed, the ultimate decision maker in Iran was Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 67, whom he said was "more reasonable." But, Eiland went on, "if Ahmadinejad were to succeed him - and he has a reasonable chance of doing so - then we'd be in a highly dangerous situation."

The 49-year-old Iranian president, he said, "has a religious conviction that Israel's demise is essential to the restoration of Muslim glory, that the Zionist thorn in the heart of the Islamic nations must be removed. And he will pay almost any price to right the perceived historic wrong. If he becomes the supreme leader and has a nuclear capability, that's a real threat."

In facing up to Iran's nuclear ambitions, Eiland said the United States had three possible courses of action, "all of them bad," and that a decision could not be postponed for too long, "since delay, too, is a decision of sorts."

The first option was "to give up" - to accept that Iran was going nuclear and try to make the best of it. By "making the best of it," Eiland said, he meant "isolating Iran economically, politically and internationally in the hope that this will eventually prompt an internal push for regime change."

This might also give other nations the sense that the political price of going nuclear was too high for them to contemplate, and might thus deter nations such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria and others from seeking to emulate Iran and spelling the full collapse of the nuclear nonproliferation era.

Washington's second option was to launch a last-ditch effort at diplomatic action, he said. At this stage, a mixture of sanctions and bonuses would not be sufficient to deter Iran altogether, but it might seek to persuade Teheran to suspend progress for two or three years.

"In return, the US would have to open direct engagement with Teheran, with full recognition of the regime. This would boost the regime's credibility and standing at home and allow it to say it was voluntarily suspending the program for a while," he said.

The advantage for the Bush administration was that "Bush could then say, 'They didn't go nuclear on my watch, and it's up to my successors to keep things that way.'"

The third option, said Eiland, was a military operation - born of the sense that the diplomatic process would not work and that there could be no compromise with an axis-of-evil power. However, internal political realities and public opinion in the US were not conducive to this, he said, nor was international support readily available. Furthermore, said Eiland, "this would be action that would have to be taken within months.

If not, and if Iran continues enrichment, it will complete the research and development stage and have a proven ability which it can then duplicate at numerous sites. And at that point it could not be stopped by military action. Six months or 12 months from now would be too late, he said.

Tellingly, Eiland noted, it seemed to him that the difficulties facing the administration over that third course were growing.

As the crisis with Iran deepens, meanwhile, some Israeli sources believe the US has acted foolishly in spurning opportunities for international diplomatic cooperation against Iran in recent years, and that Israel mistakenly encouraged this course of action.

The US might have had more success isolating Iran two years ago, when Bush and French President Jacques Chirac were stronger, Iran was weaker and the situation in Iraq looked better, said the sources.

As recently as a few months ago, on a trip to Ukraine, which is a vital Russian sphere of influence, US Vice President Richard Cheney criticized the Putin regime's record on democracy, the sources pointed out. Against that kind of background, the US should not be surprised now, therefore, to find Russia less than willing to fully cooperate on its Iran strategy.

Israel, these sources went on, realized early the danger posed by Iran's nuclear drive but erred in supporting the US in hanging tough rather than pushing it toward cooperation.

As for Israel's military options, these sources spoke of an immense dilemma for the government. Declining to go into detail, they noted only that Israel was not as potent militarily as the US and mused about what might happen if a military action proved unsuccessful in thwarting the nuclear program. Iran might then complete its nuclear drive and, branding Israel a preemptive aggressor, claim legitimacy for a strike of its own at Israel.

August 21, 2006 12:52 PM

Asa Eslocker Reports:

Ap_august06_060821_nrWhile no extra safeguards are in place, U.S. law enforcement are not ignoring the possible significance of tomorrow's date, August 22, a date that marks an important historic event on the Islamic calendar.

Internet websites have been full of speculation that it could be a target date for terrorists in commemoration of the return of the 12th imam, a supposed day of reckoning for Shiites.

August 22 was rumored by intelligence experts to be a possible date that the London plotters would blow-up passenger planes headed towards the United States, though it is not known if the suspects were Shiite extremists.

This year, August 22 marks the holy day on the Islamic calendar that is the day of reckoning for Shiites. Some Shiite sects believe that August 22 could correspond to the end of the world. And just today, after much hype, Iran has announced that it will continue to develop its nuclear program. To followers of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, this is a well-timed affront to Israel, the United States and the world. The United Nations had given Iran until the end of the month to respond, but Ahmadinejad had made it clear to all Iranians and the world that he intended to respond on the eve of August 22.

Whether or not this announcement is the end of Ahmadinejad's plans for August 22, one expert says we will have to wait and watch.

"The only thing we can know is that the date was not chosen by accident," said Robert Spencer, Director of Jihadwatch.org and an adjunct fellow at the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative think tank. "It does seem very likely, very probable, that he has something major in mind, whether only a major announcement or a major attack, we will soon see."

Could we be within two days of Armageddon? Let's hope the "Little Man From Iran" doesn't try anything that he will regret!

Tuesday, August 8, 2006
NUCLEAR WAR-FEAR
Iranian cataclysm forecast Aug. 22
Islamists seeking heaven could spark apocalypse, Princeton expert warns
Posted: August 8, 2006
5:00 p.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com


Bernard Lewis (courtesy Princeton University)

A top expert on the Mideast says it is possible Iran could pick Aug. 22, the anniversary of one of Islam's holiest events, for a cataclysm Shiite Muslims believe will forever resolve the battle between "good" and "evil."

Princeton's Bernard Lewis has written an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal advising that the rest of the world would be wise to bear in mind that for those who believe the end of the world is imminent and good, there is no deterrent even to nuclear warfare.

As WorldNetDaily has reported, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has urged his people to prepare for the coming of an Islamic "messiah," raising concerns a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic could trigger the kind of global conflagration he envisions will set the stage for the end of the world.

He's also said, in a WND report, that Islam and its followers must prepare to rule the world, because it is a "universal ideology that leads the world to justice."

Now comes Lewis, who notes that the world must be concerned about a leader for whom the possibility of death is not a deterrent.

"In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning," Lewis wrote. "At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead – hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers.

"For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint, it is an inducement," he said.

Lewis noted that Ahmadinejad has referred to Aug. 22 several times, including when he rejected – until that date – United Nations requests for nuclear program information.

Lewis, joining several other Mideast experts who have expressed similar concerns, said Aug. 22 corresponds to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427.

"This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back," Lewis wrote.

In Islam, as in other religious, certain beliefs describe the "cosmic struggle" at the end of time. For Shiite Muslims, Lewis wrote, this will be "the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil."

The significance, he said, is that there's a "radical" difference between Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons.

"This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers," he wrote. Iran's leaders now "clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced."

As for intent, a passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook, reveals priorities: "I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers (i.e., the infidel powers) wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom."

Lewis wrote, "This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadanejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind."

Lewis, the Cleveland E. Dodge professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, specializes in Muslim history and interaction between Muslims and the West.

His comments echoed those made just a few days earlier by Robert Spencer, another scholar of Islamic history, theology and law and the director of Jihad Watch.

In an article for FrontPageMagazine.com, he wrote that Farid Ghadry, president of the Reform Party of Syria, noted the commemoration of Muhammad's ascent to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Spencer said the Night Journey, or Miraj, is what makes Jerusalem a holy site for Islam, and Islamic tradition believes Muhammad, along with the angel Gabriel, went to the Temple Mount, and then to heaven in a bathing of light over Jerusalem.

Spencer reported that Ghadry talked of Ahmadinejad's plans for an illumination of the night sky over Jerusalem to rival the light of that Islamic belief.

Ghadry said what the Iranian president is "promising the world by August 22 is the light in the sky over the Aqsa Mosque," Spencer said.

He said a nuclear attack on Jerusalem, or even a conventional attack, would be consistent with the references that have been made, including Ahmadinejad's talk that Israel "pushed the button of its own destruction" by returning fire for Hezbollah's rocket barrage.

Also, "Atomic Iran" author Jerome Corsi notes that it's less significant whether Hezbollah survives, "but it's really the first chapter in the play for Iran and the Shiite Islam nation to come to ascendancy in the Muslim world."

First is the battle against Israel and the United States, he said, then against Sunni Islam. Where that group is more dominant, he said, is in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where group members are "not unhappy to see Iran contained."

"They may launch an attack, but I still think if they had a weapon they would just go ahead and use it," Corsi said. "Terrorists don't brag about things they're going to do until after they do it."

He said the recent comments are more typical of terrorists' efforts to get attention.

"When Ahmadinejad is capable of taking action he will do it without any warning or bravado; he'll just do it," Corsi said.

In the updated edition of "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians," now available in paperback from WND Books, Corsi discusses many of the disturbing developments related to Iran.

Meanwhile, Tanzanian customs officials have uncovered an Iranian smuggling operation transporting large quantities of bomb-making uranium from the same mines in the Congo that provided the nuclear material for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima 61 years ago, according to a recent report in the London Sunday Times.

A United Nations report, outlining the interception last October, said there is "no doubt" the smuggled uranium-238 came from mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's mineral-rich Katanga province.

The smuggled uranium discovered by Tanzanian customs agents was hidden in shipment of coltan, a rare mineral used to make chips in mobile telephones. According to the manifest, the coltan was to be smelted in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan after being shipped to Bandar Abbas, Iran's largest port.

Uranium-238, when used in a nuclear reactor, can be used to create plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Sheehan Resumes Protest Near Bush Ranch
Aug 06 8:08 PM US/Eastern
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By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press Writer

A year after her first war protest in President Bush's adopted hometown attracted thousands and reinvigorated the nation's peace movement, Cindy Sheehan resumed her vigil Sunday.

Under the blazing Texas sun, Sheehan and more than 50 demonstrators again marched a mile and a half toward Bush's ranch, stopping at a roadblock. As Secret Service agents stood silently, Sheehan held up her California driver's license and said she wanted to meet with the president.

"It doesn't say my new address, but I do live here now," said Sheehan, who lives in Berkeley, Calif., and recently bought land in Crawford for war protests. "My name is Cindy and Bush killed my son."

The group then chanted, "This is what democracy looks like! This is what democracy sounds like!" and a few people sang "This Land Is Your Land" while standing near the roadblock before returning to the protest site.

White House spokesman Tony Snow has said that neither Bush nor his staff plan to meet with Sheehan.

"I would advise her to bring water, Gatorade or both," Snow said when asked about Sheehan during a press briefing Friday. "Honestly, when you're talking about the kind of issues that we're talking about, Cindy Sheehan hasn't risen to the level of staff meetings at this point."

Earlier Sunday, about 50 protesters attended an interfaith service Sunday on the 5 acres that Gold Star Families for Peace recently bought with insurance money Sheehan received after her oldest son, Casey, died in Iraq in 2004.

The vacant land, with a field and tree groves, is near downtown, about seven miles from the ranch. Sheehan, who plans to donate the land for a park after the war is over, said she plans to register to vote and get a driver's license in Texas.

As Sheehan spoke, saying "our hearts are connected," regardless of people's races, countries or religions, a man disrupted the service with loud questions and shouts of, "This is unpatriotic!" before the protesters asked him to leave.

William McGlothlin of Marked Tree, Ark., said he was visiting his son in College Station and decided to try to see Bush's ranch, then stopped by the protesters' site because he had heard about them and was angry.

"I believe Bush is doing what he should be doing," McGlothlin said. "Freedom of speech is good until it gets out of whack."

Several Bush supporters also set up a tent Sunday in downtown Crawford, which they have done every time Sheehan has returned.

Sheehan said she expected more war opponents to arrive throughout the month. Their protest initially was to start Aug. 16, after the Veterans for Peace convention in Seattle, but she moved it up last week after learning that Bush would be in Crawford for only 10 days at the beginning of August.

A year ago, Sheehan and a few dozen anti-war demonstrators arrived in Crawford from the Veterans for Peace convention in Dallas and marched toward Bush's ranch, demanding to talk to the president about the war.

Two of Bush's top aides met with Sheehan, but she said she wouldn't leave until Bush himself talked to her, so she set up camp in ditches off a road a couple of miles from the ranch.

As her 26-day vigil swelled to several thousand people on weekends _ and as locals complained of the noise, traffic and odor from portable toilets _ a sympathetic landowner allowed the group to use his 1-acre lot about a mile from the ranch.

Last fall, county commissioners banned roadside camping and parking.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Police Find Map Marking Phoenix Slayings

PHOENIX (AP) - One of the two suspects in a series of apparently random late-night killings discarded a trash bag in which police found a map with red and blue dots representing the locations of the attacks, court documents said.

The bag also contained an expended .410-gauge shotgun shell and a piece of paper referring to serial violence, according to a probable cause statement released Friday night.

The trash bag had been tossed into a bin at the suburban Mesa apartment complex where Dale S. Hausner and Samuel John Dieteman lived, the report said. The men, accused of shooting two dozen people, including six fatally, were arrested late Thursday after police tailed them for a week.

A person who called police said Dieteman drove around selecting random targets. It was only later that police connected Hausner to Dieteman. Police watched them as they "suspiciously drove through the areas of prior attacks and slowing in the areas of vagrant activity," according to the report.

Hausner and Dieteman would take turns driving and shooting, and Dieteman admitted to carrying out many of the shootings, the report said.

It said detectives found a .410-gauge shotgun and ammunition in the suspects' possession. Police also found other guns and long rifles and news clippings about the killings.

Hausner, 33, and Dieteman, 30, were booked Friday afternoon for investigation of two counts of first-degree murder in the Sunday killing of Robin Blasnek and the May 2 killing of Claudia Gutierrez-Cruz and for investigation of 13 counts of attempted first-degree murder. Police said other charges are possible.

At an initial court appearance Friday night, both men were ordered held without bond. Their preliminary hearings were set for Aug. 14 and the court assigned them attorneys.

The attacks, which began in May 2005, were all the more frightening because another, apparently unrelated serial killer has been preying on Phoenix-area victims at the same time. Even horses and dogs were among the victims.

Assistant Police Chief Kevin Robinson said the shootings attributed to the "Serial Shooter" appear unrelated to the still-unsolved "Baseline Killer" cases: eight slayings and 11 rapes since August 2005. Investigators are scouring the city's trove of unsolved crimes for links to that serial predator.

The cases doubled the fear and paranoia gripping Phoenix neighborhoods in recent months and led law enforcement agencies to devote more than 200 investigators to track down the killers. Authorities said they will move investigators from the Serial Shooter case to the Baseline Killer one.

Robinson described the Serial Shooter suspects as friends who had no obvious connections to any of the victims.

"The best we could tell, they were just random victims. These individuals just picked victims out and that was it," he said.

Police would not discuss what they thought were the men's motives.

They said they knew nothing about the suspects' occupations, but the city said Hausner worked as a janitor at the Phoenix airport and neighbors said he also worked as a freelance photographer.

According to a report in Saturday's editions of The Free Press, of Mankato, Minn., Dieteman had lived in at least six different addresses in south-central Minnesota and had dozens of run-ins with local police.

Records obtained by the newspaper show that from 1992 to 1999, police had nearly 40 contacts with Dieteman, including drunken driving incidents, thefts and assaults. The newspaper also found court records showing Dieteman failed to pay child support to his ex-wife. He left Minnesota in 1999.

The most recent shooting occurred Sunday in Mesa, less than three miles from the men's apartment. Blasnek was killed as she was walking from her parents' home to her boyfriend's house.

Hausner's brother, Randy, told The Associated Press his family is devastated by the arrest.

"I mean, who would do something like that?" Randy Hausner said. "That's harming innocent people."

---

Associated Press Writer Chris Kahn contributed to this report.

The Gator Hole

Keynan McGuire, left, and Josh Bryant, both 11, were two of the children who found an alligator at the Shady Lane fishing pond Monday evening in Evergreen. “It was pretty scary, I’ve lived in Montana for nine years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bryant said. Chris Jordan/Daily Inter Lake
By KRISTI ALBERTSONThe Daily Inter Lake

Boys reel in 5-foot, 60-pound alligator in Kalispell pond

Some birthdays stand out as exceptionally memorable; 16 and 21 usually make the list.

Josh Bryant will never forget his 11th birthday, when he came nose to snout with a 5-foot alligator in Kalispell.

On Monday afternoon, Josh and his mother, Lynn, were trying out the new fishing pole she’d given him for his birthday. The Shady Lane fishing pond near the old Steel Bridge, where he spends three or four days a week during the summer, seemed the perfect place to test the rod.

It was about 4 p.m. when Lynn Bryant spotted something swimming toward them.

“I thought it was a muskrat,” she said.

Then she took a closer look. Muskrats didn’t swim with just their eyes and back ridges sticking out of the water.

The Bryants couldn’t believe their eyes, but there was no doubt the animal swimming toward them was an alligator. Bryant moved to the edge of the dock and started taking pictures with her camera phone, knowing no one would believe them otherwise.

At first the alligator was almost friendly, she said, but they still wanted to get it out of the water so someone could come take care of it. A friend grabbed Josh’s pole and tried to hook the gator. He succeeded a few times, but each time the alligator simply swallowed the lure.

A few more would-be fishermen showed up soon after. One of them had a stronger pole; he, too, tried to catch the alligator but once again it swallowed the proffered minnow, hook and all.

By this time, onlookers had called friends and soon a crowd of about 50 people had gathered. Some simply watched. Others tried to help subdue the alligator, which was now agitated.

“This thing was very aggressive,” Bryant said.

“It was snapping at us kids and adults,” Josh added.

Someone brought a bow and shot it. They knew the alligator had been hit because the arrow was sticking straight up, Josh said. Then the arrow — and the alligator — disappeared for almost an hour. Suspense mounted on the banks of the pond.

“It was like a serial killer movie or something, a killer alligator,” Josh said.

The gator didn’t stay down for good, though. When it surfaced, the crowd was ready.

“His dad jumped in the water,” Josh said, pointing at his friend, Kaynen McGuire.

McGuire, 11, nodded. His father had plunged in the water with a stick, grabbed the alligator by the tail and swung it onto the bank.

“This was right out of ‘Crocodile Dundee,’ I swear,” Bryant said.

Four men held it down and tied its jaws shut with fish stringer, then put it in a canoe and dragged it up to the road. Someone produced a knife and tried to slit the animal’s throat. Still it didn’t die.

“This thing’s got like nine lives,” Bryant said.

The Flathead County Sheriff’s Office didn’t hear about the incident until about 10 p.m., according to dispatch logs. When Deputy Ray Young arrived, he called Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which referred him to U.S. Fish and Wildlife. By this time, the alligator was in bad shape, so the federal agency told Young to shoot it.

Brian Sommers, regional investigator with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, got the call around 10:40 p.m.

“When I got there, it was pretty much over and done with,” he said. “It was just talking with the people that were there and picking up the critter.”

The “critter” will go in a freezer at the Fish, Wildlife and Parks office, Sommers said. He’s not sure what the agency will do with it.

He’s also not sure where the alligator came from.

“The only thing I can guess is it was probably somebody’s pet,” he said. “Maybe they got tired of it and turned it loose.”

Sommers has had to deal with pet alligators in the past, he said, but only a few and only animals about 20 inches long. At 5 feet long and roughly 60 pounds, Monday’s alligator was the largest he’s ever seen in the area.

If found, the person responsible will be charged for releasing the alligator into the wild, he said.

“Given the right circumstances, we could’ve had a pretty big problem if it got hold of a kid swimming or something,” he said.

If anyone has information about how the alligator got into the pond, call 1-800-TIP-MONT or call Crimestoppers at 752-TIPS.

Even though it’s now alligator-free, Josh won’t be fishing at the pond anytime soon.

“It was just my 11th birthday, and I had to catch an alligator,” he said. “Why couldn’t I catch a little trout?”

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.

Wednesday, Aug. 02, 2006

“[An] extraordinarily crude, cold-blooded and lazy way for the government to deal with epidemic disease.”

— Editorial from Legal Daily, China's official newspaper
after government officials order the mass killing of 50,000 dogs to control rabies

Flooding causes millions in damage to Coronado National Memorial
Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.01.2006



SIERRA VISTA - Flooding in the Coronado National Memorial caused millions of dollars in damage to roads and recreation sites, leaving much of the area inaccessible and closed indefinitely.
More than 12 inches of rain fell in the southeastern Arizona park Sunday and Monday, Park Ranger Leigh Carter said Tuesday.
Parts of a paved road were washed away and the unpaved road to Montezuma Pass was impassable, with tons of boulders and other debris piled onto the road, Memorial Superintendent Kym Hall said.
"It's bad, we got wiped out," Hall said. She said an engineering survey would be required to access what repairs would be needed to reopen and estimated the park sustained "several millions" of dollars in damage.
"We have so much damage right now we have no idea how long it is going to take to clean up," Carter said.
A trail to the popular cave area and another well-used path were washed out, large trees and mud filled the picnic area and the memorial's drinking water system was destroyed, Hall said.
Soldiers from a Kentucky National Guard unit in the area to beef up border infrastructure were helping park staff remove some debris, Carter said.
The Memorial covers 4,750 acres overlooking the San Pedro River Valley and is administered by the National Parks Service. It commemorates the first major exploration of the Southwest by Europeans, an expedition by Spaniard Francisco Vasquez de Coronado that crossed into the current U.S. in 1540 while on a search for the legendary fabled Seven Cities of Cibola.


Tucson precipitation marks tumble
By Eric Swedlund and Tom Beal
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.01.2006

A record 1.9 inches of rain fell at the airport in a storm early Monday, single-handedly pushing year-to-date precipitation past normal and capping the wettest July in 16 years.
Rainwater filled the normally dry washes and rivers with torrents of muddy water, pushing flows on the Rillito River past record levels, according to preliminary measurements.
The flow at Dodge Boulevard was the highest recorded in 95 years of measurement, said Nick Melcher, director of the Arizona Water Science Center of the U.S. Geological Survey.
By Monday evening, the month's rainfall was enough to make this the fifth-wettest July on record and the wettest since 1990, when the airport received 5.45 inches of rain on the way to a monsoon total of 9.85 inches.
The wettest July on record was 1921, when 6.24 inches of rain were recorded.
Water was flowing down the Rillito at Dodge Boulevard at a rate of 30,000 cubic feet per second, according to the USGS measurements, eclipsing the previous high of 24,100 cfs in January 1993.
Monday was the fourth-wettest July day ever and the wettest day since last Aug. 23, when 2.29 inches of rain was recorded, the most in 22 years. The one-day record for rainfall in Tucson is 3.93 inches, recorded on July 29, 1958.
Storms the past five days delivered 3.83 inches of rain at the airport — and substantially more at other locations across the Tucson area — and have erased the precipitation deficit in what had so far been one of the driest years on record.
The water year, which starts in October, had been the driest on record clear through June, with a 10-month total of 1.23 inches of rain.
? Contact reporter Eric Swedlund at 573-4115 or at eswedlund@azstarnet.com.