CLINTON...
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Barack Obama likened Hillary Rodham Clinton to President Bush for threatening to ``totally obliterate'' Iran if it attacks Israel and called her gas-tax holiday a gimmick as he tried to fend off her challenge ahead of two pivotal Democratic primaries.

Clinton, in turn, stood by both her comment on Iran and her tax proposal as she gave chase in Indiana and North Carolina to the front-runner for the nomination.

The competitors squabbled over the issues - one foreign, one domestic - from a short distance, first during separate appearances on Sunday news shows and then as they courted voters for Tuesday's primaries.

``This is the final push,'' Clinton told a cheering crowd of volunteer canvassers in Fort Wayne, emboldened by her Pennsylvania victory two weeks ago as well as polls that show her in a close race in Indiana and narrowing Obama's lead in North Carolina.

A few hours later and a few miles away, Obama urged an audience of several thousand to vote for him. ``I need help,'' he said.

The Illinois senator hopes that wins this week will stop the bleeding from a difficult campaign stretch. Maneuvering for advantage and trying to put the controversy over his former pastor behind him, Obama sought Sunday to portray Clinton as a political opportunist on both Iran and her gas-tax plan.

The two rivals crossed paths at the state Democratic party's Jefferson Jackson Day dinner. Both candidates received loud cheers and applause from their respective supporters.

Clinton pushed her proposal for a summer suspension of the gasoline tax, which she would pay for with a windfall profit tax on oil companies.

``We can't just plan for the future, we have to help people in the here and now,'' Clinton said. ``The choice to me is clear, we need to go after the oil companies.''

Obama, who calls the proposal a gimmick, told the same audience that oil companies would ``simply jack up their price to fill the gap'' if such a gas tax holiday were observed. ``Does anybody here really trust the oil companies to give you the savings instead of just pocketing the money themselves?'' he asked.

Obama rolled out a new TV ad for Indiana and North Carolina that derided ``Clinton gimmicks that help big oil.''

Many economists oppose the plan and Clinton, during an interview on ABC's ``This Week,'' demurred when asked to name one who supports it. ``I'm not going to put my lot in with economists because I know if we did it right ... it would be implemented effectively,'' she said.

In a CBS News/New York Times poll released Sunday, 49 percent of voters said they thought lifting the gas tax for the summer was a bad idea. Only 45 percent thought it was a good idea.

Earlier, on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' Obama seized on an answer Clinton gave recently when asked what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons on her watch.

``I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran,'' Clinton said April 22 in an interview with ABC. ``In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.''

Obama said, ``It's not the language we need right now, and I think it's language reflective of George Bush'' akin to ``bluster and saber rattling.''

``Senator Clinton during the course of the campaign has said we shouldn't speculate about Iran, we've got to be cautious when we're running for president, she scolded me on a couple of occasions on this issue, yet a few days before an election, she's willing to use that language,'' Obama added.

Clinton, asked about Obama's criticism, didn't back away from her comment.

``Why would I have any regrets? I'm asked a question about what I would do if Iran attacked our ally ... and, yes, we would have massive retaliation against Iran,'' Clinton said. ``I don't think they will do that, but I sure want to make it abundantly clear to them that they would face a tremendous cost if they did such a thing.''

Clinton and Obama both shuffled their schedules to dart back to North Carolina on Monday, reflecting the tightening contest there.

Obama is ahead in the hunt for convention delegates - 1,742.5 to 1,607.5, according to an Associated Press count Sunday - but he has faced a spate of troubles over the past month. That has Clinton sensing an opening. Still, the delegate math works in Obama's favor, and it will be difficult for Clinton to overtake him.

Nevertheless, Clinton suggested anew she had no intention of dropping out, saying on ABC, ``When the process finishes in early June, people can look at all the various factors and decide who would be the strongest candidate'' to go up against McCain.

Obama told NBC, ``We are going to keep on going and we feel confident that I am going to be the Democratic nominee.''

MEMORIAL...
The New York Times is reporting that critics see symbols of Islam in the design for a 9/11 memorial to those who died when United Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

BAGHDAD GREEN ZONE...
BAGHDAD (AP) - Forget the rocket attacks, concrete blast walls and lack of a sewer system. Now try to imagine luxury hotels, a shopping center and even condos in the heart of Baghdad.

That's all part of a five-year development ``dream list'' - or what some dub an improbable fantasy - to transform the U.S.-protected Green Zone from a walled fortress into a centerpiece for Baghdad's future.

But the $5 billion plan has the backing of the Pentagon and apparently the interest of some deep pockets in the world of international hotels and development, the lead military liaison for the project told The Associated Press.

For Washington, the driving motivation is to create a ``zone of influence'' around the new $700 million U.S. Embassy to serve as a kind of high-end buffer for the compound, whose total price tag will reach about $1 billion after all the workers and offices are relocated over the next year.

``When you have $1 billion hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around, you kind of want to know who your neighbors are. You want to influence what happens in your neighborhood over time,'' said Navy Capt. Thomas Karnowski, who led the team that created the development plan.

Karnowski said a deal already has been completed for Marriott International Inc. to build a hotel in the Green Zone. He also said a possible $1 billion investment could come from MBI International, a conglomerate that focuses on hotels and resorts and is led by Saudi Sheikh Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber.

Elizabeth Caminiti, a Marriott spokeswoman, declined to comment. Phone calls and e-mails sent to London-based MBI were not returned.

For the moment, however, it's mortars and rockets - not investment money - pouring into the Green Zone, which includes the U.S. and British embassies, key Iraqi government offices and other international compounds. Militants have escalated their shelling of the enclave since Iraqi forces began a crackdown on Shiite militias in late March.

But developers are clearly looking many years ahead and gambling that Baghdad could one day join the list of former war zones such as Sarajevo and Beirut that have rebounded and earned big paydays for early investors.

Even now - with violence in Baghdad again creeping up - the faint hints of the development plan have driven up the Green Zone's already sky-high real estate prices.

Land that a few years ago was going for $60 a square meter on 50-year leases in the zone is now going for up to $1,000 a square meter, American officials say.

Last week, a Los Angeles-based holding company for equity firms, C3, confirmed it was starting a $500 million project to build an amusement park on the outskirts of the Green Zone in an area encompassing the Baghdad Zoo. The first phase, a skateboard park, is scheduled to open this summer.

But any Green Zone project is literally starting from the ground up.

``There is no sewer system, no working power system. Everything here is done on generators. No road system repair work. There are no city services other than the minimal amount we provide to get by,'' Karnowski said.

He noted that of 500 development projects carried out in Baghdad last year, not one was done in the Green Zone - with the exception of the building of the new American embassy.

The plan also envisions significantly reducing the non-Iraqi footprint in the Green Zone, a five-square-mile area crisscrossed by 15-foot-high blast walls and checkpoints.

About 50 percent of the area is now occupied by coalition forces, the U.S. State Department or private foreign companies. If all were to go according to Karnowski's plan, only 5 percent of land in the Green Zone will be in foreigners' hands in five years.

Privately, American diplomats say the plan is, at best, wishful thinking.

Security is nowhere near the level needed for major development projects. Then there is the question of whether the Iraqi government even wants U.S. involvement in developing the center of their capital.

One diplomat, who asked not to be named because of no authorization to speak to the media, said they did not think Iraqis would want Washington to ``turn this area into downtown Kansas City.''

But Both Karnowski and Iraqi officials said the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is interested in hearing U.S. ideas in developing the Green Zone, though many Iraqi leaders have expressed worries and words of caution.

``The Iraqi government wants to limit U.S. power in the Green Zone,'' a top adviser to al-Maliki said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Iraqis also complain that the Americans - because they control security in the Green Zone - essentially hold a veto over the investors.

Karnowski acknowledged that American officials would vet potential investors because of a ``vested interest.''

Some Iraqi leaders even have drawn parallels to the U.S.-backed development plan and what Saddam Hussein did in the area - known by its Iraqi name of Tashri during his regime.

Hussein stocked the neighborhood with family and tribal allies, political loyalists and members of his elite Republican Guard. Karnowski called the accusation ``partially true.''

``Why do people build fences around their house? The intent is until such time as it's much safer around here, you want to be able to influence what goes on,'' he said.

The biggest hurdle to the plan is sorting out the true owners of property in the Green Zone, where ``eminent domain by gun'' was employed during the Saddam era, Karnowski said.

The chaos after Saddam's fall also added the murkiness.

``It's a jungle here,'' said Hussein, a 28-year-old from Lebanon who started a contracting company about a year ago in Baghdad and rents out living space in the Green Zone on the side. ``It used to be like the Wild West - you grabbed some property and said, 'this is mine.''

Air Force Lt. Col. Monte Harner leads the effort to discover who owns the titles and consolidate the areas held by the U.S. military.

He said the Army plans to move a military hospital in the zone - now located in a former private medical facility - to a base nearby, freeing it up for Iraqi use. Also in the works is the consolidation of Green Zone housing used by American troops.

Sadiq al-Rikabi, a top adviser to al-Maliki, said there are also plans for development projects at the Baghdad airport west of the city, including a hotel.

American officials confirmed some projects would be carried out near the airport.

According to Karnowski, the United States will spend $120 million to demolish buildings damaged by air strikes during the opening days of the war.

Both Karnowski and Harner are aware their Green Zone plan is viewed as unrealistic by many, primarily U.S. Embassy officials.

``If you talk to people at the State Department, they still believe a hotel isn't going up. But it is a done deal,'' Karnowski said of the Marriott project.

Harner also believes even having a blueprint is important.

``You have to stake a goal in the sand before you can begin to move toward it,'' he said. ``Without a vision of what could be, you're just treading water.''

YAHOO-MICROSOFT...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Jerry Yang is convinced that the company he started in a Silicon Valley trailer 14 years ago is worth more than the $47.5 billion that Microsoft Corp. had offered for the Internet pioneer.

Now he may only have a few months to convince Wall Street that his rebuff of Microsoft's takeover bid was a smart move - and if he can't, analysts won't be surprised if Yang is either replaced as CEO or forced to consider accepting a lower offer if Microsoft comes knocking at his door again.

``This squarely puts the pressure on Jerry Yang to deliver results and shareholder value,'' Standard & Poor's equity analyst Scott Kessler said. ``You are going to see a lot of shareholders just throwing in the towel because they are going to realize it's going to take awhile for the stock to get back to where it was Friday.''

The backlash is expected to begin Monday when Kessler and other analysts believe Yahoo's stock price will surrender most, if not all, of its 50 percent gain since Microsoft made its initial offer Jan. 31. The anticipated sell-off would leave Yahoo's market value hovering around $30 billion.

In Frankfurt, Germany, three hours before trading opened in New York, Yahoo shares fell 18.6 percent to 14.74 euros ($22.79).

Meanwhile, most analysts believe Microsoft's stock price will rise Monday. The shares had declined 10 percent to $29.24 since the bid, reflecting concerns that the proposed marriage would turn into a complicated mess that would enable Google Inc. to grow even stronger.

Yahoo shares finished last week at $28.67, slightly less than the $29.40 per share that Microsoft was offering before Chief Executive Steve Ballmer agreed to raise the offer to $33 per share in a last-ditch effort to get a deal done.

Disillusioned shareholders are bound to question whether the rejection of Microsoft's sweetened offer was driven more by emotion and ego than sound business sense.

``Clearly there's frustration,'' said Darren Chervitz, co-manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns Yahoo stock. ``I am not even sure if Yahoo cares about its shareholders because they didn't show much regard for shareholders' best interests in this process.''

Despite such negative sentiment, Yahoo shares are unlikely to immediately fall back to their $19.18 pre-bid price, partly because some investors may still be holding out hope that the software maker will renew its takeover attempt if Yahoo continues to struggle.

Accompanied by fellow Yahoo co-founder David Filo, Yang flew to Seattle on Saturday to inform Ballmer that the company wouldn't sell for less than $37 per share - a price that Yahoo's stock hasn't reached since January 2006.

Analysts and investors were left to wonder why the two sides couldn't compromise at $35 per share.

``They really didn't seem that far apart,'' Chervitz said. ``There is probably blame to go around on both sides, but I think most of it is in Yang's hands.''

To win the faith of shareholders, Yang will have to execute a turnaround plan that he began drawing up nearly a year ago after he replaced Terry Semel as CEO amid shareholder angst about the company's financial malaise.

Ballmer also will be under the gun to prove he can come up with another way to challenge Google's dominance of the Internet's lucrative search and advertising markets.

The unsolicited bid was widely seen as Ballmer's admission that Microsoft needed Yahoo's help to upgrade its unprofitable Internet division.

Analysts now expect Ballmer to use the money he had earmarked for the Yahoo acquisition to explore other possible deals with large Internet companies like Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and News Corp.'s MySpace and promising startups like Facebook Inc. and LinkedIn Corp. Microsoft already owns a 1.6 percent in Facebook, the second-largest social network behind MySpace.

But Ballmer is unlikely to be under as much duress as Yang, 39, who has promised that Yahoo's development of a more sophisticated and far-flung Internet advertising platform will produce net revenue growth of at least 25 percent in 2009 and 2010.

That would be a dramatic improvement, considering that Yahoo's revenue rose by 12 percent last year and is expected to grow at about the same pace this year.

Analysts, though, are skeptical about whether Yahoo will be able to hit those targets, raising the chances for a shareholder rebellion if the company stumbles in the next two quarters - a distinct possibility if advertisers curtail spending in a shaky U.S. economy, as many analysts fear.

As it is, Yang and the rest of Yahoo's board almost certainly will face more lawsuits from incensed shareholders.

Even some of Yahoo's own employees may be irritated because virtually all of them own stock options.

What's more, Microsoft had planned to offer $1.5 billion in retention packages to the thousands of Yahoo employees it wanted to stay on after a takeover.

To help boost its short-term profits and its stock price, Yahoo is widely expected to form a long-term advertising partnership with Google.

Although the final details are still being ironed out, Yahoo wants to hire Google to place some of the text-based ads that appear alongside the search results on its Web site. It's a task that Google already handles for scores of Web sites, including AOL and Ask.com.

Both Yahoo and Google have said they were encouraged with the results of a two-week trial run completed last month.

But turning to Google for help would be a humbling step for Yahoo after spending more than $2 billion to acquire and build its own technology.

An alliance between Google and Yahoo also would face antitrust hurdles because the two companies combined control more than 80 percent of the U.S. search advertising market.

Although Google's superior technology would help boost Yahoo's profits in the short term, some analysts worry it could be a mistake for Yahoo to surrender any control over such a lucrative piece of the online ad market.

Yahoo also has been exploring a possible merger with AOL's Internet operations but may now have to contend with a competing offer from Microsoft.

Yahoo also might attempt to placate shareholders by buying back stock.

Kessler believes Yang should use some of his estimated $1.9 billion fortune to personally buy more Yahoo stock even though he already owns 54.1 million shares, or 3.9 percent of the company.

``Jerry Yang really needs to put his money where his mouth is,'' Kessler said. ``If he really thinks Yahoo is worth $37 (per share), then he needs to step up and buy some shares when they are in the low $20.''