Choking alone (without back blows) to assist a choking victim, is referred to as "The Heimlich Maneuver." The purpose of abdominal thrusts is to create pressure that will expel any object lodged in the airway upwards to relive the obstruction. The Heimlich Maneuver specifically excludes back blows; its inventor, Dr. Henry Heimlich, believed that back blows were likely to cause an airway obstruction to become more deeply lodged in the victim's airway. So, while abdominal thrusts are part of other choking victim protocols, the Heimlich Maneuver uses only abdominal thrusts to attempt to dislodge airway obstructions. The American Red Cross recommends
Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States state sponsors of terrorism and of pursuing weapons of mass destruction. The Rumsfeld Commission grouped the three countries together because they all were believed to be pursuing ballistic missile programs based on the Scud missile. In the pre-9/11 days of the Bush presidency, the administration had focused heavily on developing a national missile defense system to counter such threats. A month after the address, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who appointed Rumsfeld as head of the commission, mentioned the importance of the commission's findings in relation to the US ability to predict the threat posed by the axis