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May 27, 2004 | Filmmaker Michael Moore filmed an interview with American Nicholas Berg in the course of producing his documentary film "Fahrenheit 9/11" before Berg left for Iraq, where he was taken hostage and killed, Moore confirmed to Salon in a statement Thursday. The 20 minutes of footage does not appear in the final version of "Fahrenheit 911," according to the statement. Word of the footage reached Salon through a source unaffiliated with Moore or his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," which is reported to feature stark images of U.S. civilians and soldiers grappling with conditions in war-torn Iraq, as well...

RIYADH: A leading Saudi-owned newspaper reported Saturday that four Libyan-recruited would-be assassins of Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz were members of Al Qaeda, the network blamed for the terror that has hit Saudi Arabia in the past 13 months. Saudi officials have not commented on the alleged plot to murder Abdullah or spoken of retaliatory measures, but Asharq Al-Awsat’s claim came as other Saudi newspapers assailed Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi for the second day in a row. The daily Okaz also sought to link Libya to the wave of bombings and shootings which began in Saudi Arabia in May...

Nick Berg, the American beheaded by terrorists was allegedly working in Iraq as a spy for American intelligence. It is suspected by some Washington insiders that Berg's links with espionage may have led to his gruesome execution that was filmed on a videotape by terrorists. "Washington is rife with rumors that Berg had a connection to U.S. intelligence. Fuelling the suspicion is that he had Arab language capabilities and he's said to be a computer genius," The National Enquirer quoted a source as saying. "Someone who was prepared to brave the dangers of traveling to Iraq on an apparently legitimate...

BEIRUT, OCTOBER 28, 2001. /RIA Novosti correspondents Yuri Zinin and Konstantin Maximov) -- The USA and Great Britain are plotting to hit 300 targets in Iraq with a thousand missiles to overthrow President Saddam Hussain, Iraq's Vice-Premier Tariq Aziz said in an interview the British-based Sunday Telegraph carries today. Iraq expects the US-British plan to be implemented, sooner or later, said the Vice-Premier as he flatly refuted suspicions of Baghdad behind the US anthrax mail.

Top brass flew to Baghdad with publicity-shy empowerment businessman Mzilikazi Wa Afrika, Jessica Bezuidenhout and Andre Jurgens Two of the ANC's most powerful officials travelled to Iraq with a controversial Johannesburg businessman just weeks before he landed a R1.2-billion state oil deal. Sandi Majali is one of about 270 people around the world who have been named in an alleged sanctions-busting scam involving oil from former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime. The names appeared in Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organisation documents found after the fall of Saddam. Majali, 41, who heads the media-shy empowerment company Imvume Resources, has for the...

<p>April 26, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - Responding to intense U.S. pressure, Syria yesterday expelled and turned over to U.S. forces a former Iraqi spymaster who orchestrated the assassination attempt on former President George Bush, officials said.</p> <p>Farouk Hijazi, the former director of external affairs for Saddam Hussein's fearsome intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, was taken into custody by U.S. Special Forces in northern Iraq near the Syrian border after he was expelled from Damascus.</p>

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz has started calling his youngest son - named Saddam after Iraq's ousted leader - by the name Zuhair instead, according to letters obtained by the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat. "My regards to everybody, how is your mother? And your youngest brother Zuhair?" Aziz said in a July letter to his two daughters, Zeinab and Maysaa. He also referred to the son as Zuhair in an October letter, the paper said in its Wednesday editions, which reproduced several of Aziz's letters. The widely read Arabic daily said it got the...

Aziz, a supporter of the Rally for the Troops series in Wash DC this past year was interviewed on Fox & Friends from Baghdad this morning on Fox & Friends. Aziz is head of the Iraqi American Council.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, in U.S. custody for seven months, helped to confirm the identity of Saddam Hussein after his capture, an official with the U.S.-led administration said Sunday. "He was identified with the help of Tareq Aziz," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. He did not elaborate. The fugitive dictator was dusty, bearded and apparently exhausted when he was found in a narrow hiding hole during a raid on a farm near his home town Tikrit late Saturday. Aziz, who surrendered to U.S. forces after the Iraqi president was...

Tariq Aziz asks 'Devil's Advocate' for help at trial By Colin Freeman in Baghdad and Kim Willsher (Filed: 14/12/2003) The family of Tariq Aziz has approached a celebrated French defence lawyer nicknamed the Devil's Advocate to defend the former Iraqi deputy prime minister at the forthcoming war crimes tribunal in Baghdad. Tariq Aziz: 'victim of Saddam' Mr Aziz's daughter, Zeinab, wants Jacques Verges, who has defended the international terrorist Carlos the Jackal and the Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie, to represent her father when he is tried over his role in Saddam Hussein's regime. Her move follows last week's announcement that...

<p>BLANTYRE, Malawi  — Five men suspected of running charities that funneled money to Al Qaeda have been arrested in Malawi and were to be deported from the southern African nation, intelligence officials said Monday.</p> <p>The men, all foreigners, were arrested Sunday night in the southern city of Blantyre in a joint operation involving the CIA and Malawi's National Intelligence Bureau, the intelligence officials said.</p>

Police in the Malawi city of Blantyre have fired tear gas at Muslims protesting against the arrest and deportation of five suspected al-Qaeda members. The al-Qaeda suspects are now in US custody The Muslims, coming from Jumm'ah, or obligatory Friday prayers, chanted slogans against the government and their own association, the Muslim Association of Malawi (Mam). They accused the government of losing sovereignty by secretly handing the suspects over to American CIA agents, despite a High Court ruling ordering the government to charge or release the men. They also accused their association of failing to protect fellow Muslims, despite the...

BAGHDAD, Nov. 2 — Saddam Hussein refused to order a counterattack against U.S. troops when war erupted in March because he misjudged the initial ground thrust as a ruse and had been convinced earlier by Russian and French contacts that he could avoid or survive a land invasion, former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz has told interrogators, according to U.S. officials.AZIZ, WHO surrendered to U.S. authorities on April 24, has also said Iraq did not possess stocks of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons on the eve of the war, an assertion that echoes the previously reported statements of other...

SADDAM JUDGE MURDERED The judge heading judicial committees to investigate former officials of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime in Najaf has been shot dead, it is reported. Muhan Jabr al-Shuwaili, who chairs the Najaf Tribunal and the investigative committees, was kidnapped along with Najaf prosecutor General Aref Aziz, from the judge's house in the city on Monday, the AFP agency quoted Mr Aziz as saying. The two were taken in cars to a desert area five miles from Baghdad and the judge executed, he said. "One of the assailants said 'Saddam has ordered your prosecution.' Then they fired two shots into...

Saddam Hussein refused to order a counterattack against U.S. troops when war erupted in March because he misjudged the initial ground thrust as a ruse and had been convinced earlier by Russian and French contacts that he could avoid or survive a land invasion, former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz has told interrogators, according to U.S. officials. Aziz, who surrendered to U.S. authorities on April 24, has also said Iraq did not possess stocks of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons on the eve of the war, an assertion that echoes the previously reported statements of other detained Iraqi leaders...

Senior Iraqi diplomats have confirmed to NewsMax correspondent Stewart Stogel that former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz suffered a heart attack several weeks ago. It would be the second attack suffered by the former Iraqi official since he surrendered to the U.S. military in Baghdad on April 24. While his location has not been revealed by Coalition officials, it is believed that he is sequestered at one of the former presidential palaces in the environs of the Iraqi captial. Diplomatic sources tell NewsMax that Aziz has been trying to "cut a deal" with Washington since his arrest, but that the...

Urbane LegendsBy Terence P. JeffreyCreators.com | May 9, 2003 When Saddam Hussein sidekick Tariq Aziz was captured recently, a casual reader scanning the coverage could be forgiven for mistaking the English word "urbane" for the title of Aziz's Iraqi government job. Almost everywhere you saw Aziz's name, the word "urbane" was nearby. The Washington Post and the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News independently called him Iraq's "urbane former deputy prime minister." The Los Angeles Times noted his "urbane manner and effectiveness as a speaker." Agence France Presse called him "the urbane face and international voice of Iraq under Saddam Hussein";...

When Saddam Hussein sidekick Tariq Aziz was captured recently, a casual reader scanning the coverage could be forgiven for mistaking the English word "urbane" for the title of Aziz's Iraqi government job. Almost everywhere you saw Aziz's name, the word "urbane" was nearby. The Washington Post and the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News independently called him Iraq's "urbane former deputy prime minister." The Los Angeles Times noted his "urbane manner and effectiveness as a speaker." Agence France Presse called him "the urbane face and international voice of Iraq under Saddam Hussein"; the Sunday London Telegraph, "the urbane public face of...

<p>May 4, 2003 -- President Bush yesterday came out swinging against captured Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz - one of Saddam Hussein's closest confidants - saying Aziz isn't being truthful about the Butcher of Baghdad and suspected weapons of mass destruction.</p>

Bush Says Iraq's Aziz Skirting the Truth By SCOTT LINDLAW The Associated Press Saturday, May 3, 2003; 2:36 PM CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush expressed unshakable confidence Saturday that banned weapons will be found in Iraq and complained that Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein's closest deputies, is not cooperating with U.S. forces who have him in custody. Bush said the deputy prime minister, the most visible face of the former Iraqi government other than Saddam's, "still doesn't know how to tell the truth." The president, at a news conference on his ranch with visiting Australian Prime Minister John Howard,...

<p>U.S. searching for him.</p> <p>April 30, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz has told U.S. interrogators that missing U.S. pilot Capt. Michael Scott Speicher was killed when his F-18 was shot down by anti-aircraft fire during the opening night of the 1991 Gulf War.</p>

<p>Just caught this update on Gretas show, and that Aziz may have some information on the Captains location.</p> <p>CBS Radio had said that Saddam may have taken Scott to North Tikrit or Syria.</p>

BAGHDAD -- Iraq (news - web sites)'s former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz has told U.S. interrogators he saw Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) alive after the two airstrikes mounted by coalition forces to kill him, a senior Defense official says. The information provided by the most recognizable regime figure taken into custody so far bolsters sketchy reports flowing into U.S. intelligence that Saddam and his two sons survived the March 19 and April 7 airstrikes targeting them during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Almost three weeks after the fall of Baghdad, the Bush administration's public stance is nonchalant:...

SADDAM Hussein’s key aide Tariq Aziz is set to live like a king in Britain — at one of Prince Charles’s mansions.

<p>BAGHDAD — Iraq's former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz has told U.S. interrogators he saw Saddam Hussein alive after the two airstrikes mounted by coalition forces to kill him, a senior Defense official says.</p> <p>The information provided by the most recognizable regime figure taken into custody so far bolsters sketchy reports flowing into U.S. intelligence that Saddam and his two sons survived the March 19 and April 7 airstrikes targeting them during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.</p>

Tareq Aziz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraq's former deputy prime minister, Tareq Aziz, has told U.S. interrogators that Saddam Hussein survived two air strikes launched to kill the ousted Iraqi president, USA Today reported on Monday. But the newspaper also quoted a senior defense official as saying that interrogators had concluded that Aziz was lying about other matters that had come up in questioning. Aziz, who is being questioned at an undisclosed location, said he saw Saddam alive after the March 19 and April 7 air strikes on Baghdad targeting the former Iraqi leaders and his two sons, USA Today...

FORMER Iraqi prime minister Tariq Aziz has told American intelligence officials that he has not seen Saddam Hussein since the first night of the war, it was claimed last night. Aziz, who surrendered to US forces last week, has fuelled speculation that the Iraqi dictator was killed or seriously injured when the bunker in which he was hiding with his sons has hit by cruise missiles. According to US intelligence sources, the 67-year-old has said he does not know whether Saddam is alive or dead. However, he has told his captors he presumes the former Iraqi leader was incapacitated as...

Lawyers for The Daily Telegraph are to ask the American government to grant them access to Tariq Aziz to try to secure vital evidence in their forthcoming libel battle with George Galloway MP. Mr Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister and foreign minister who gave himself up to US forces yesterday, is named in Iraqi documents that the newspaper claims it obtained from the the country's Foreign Ministry last week. The newspaper alleges that Mr Galloway had struck a deal with Mr Aziz for the receipt of three million barrels of oil every six months, of which the MP's...

Iraq's former deputy prime minister, now in US hands, was the urbane public face of the Saddam regime. But he may have helped the allies to target his ex-boss, reports Con CoughlinSaddam Hussein's security chiefs placed members of Tariq Aziz's family under arrest shortly before the start of the war to make sure that the former Iraqi deputy prime minister did not defect to the West, The Telegraph can reveal. Concerns about the fate of his family - in particular his eldest son - if he surrendered to coalition forces was Aziz's primary concern during the lengthy negotiations that finally...

HOURS before American troops first entered Baghdad, Saddam Hussein’s deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, went to his information ministry for a secret meeting with the Russian ambassador. The appointment with Vladimir Titorenko was set for 1pm on April 9. Two hours later there was no sign of the Russian envoy and Aziz left the ministry. The fluent English speaker would not be seen again until he handed himself over to US forces in Baghdad last Thursday. “He was expecting a very important answer from the Russian government through their ambassador in Baghdad,” said one official. It may, he believed, have...

RAMZI HAIDAR/AFP An Iraqi man loots the house of former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz in Baghdad on April 10, a day after U.S. troops poured into the city and Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed. Surrender of ailing Aziz was in the cardsRansacked villa offers up clues to life of luxury `Get out of jail free' Monopoly card found amid rubble MITCH POTTERBAGHDAD—A pink Monopoly card lies upside down on a heap of rubble within the sumptuous riverside villa that once belonged to the second most famous man in Iraq. The skyward side says Community Chest in two...

Aziz hid in plain sight Some Iraqis seek mercy for former official found in Baghdad home04/26/2003 Associated Press BAGHDAD, Iraq – Tariq Aziz appears to have hidden in plain sight during the U.S. invasion, holing up in a Baghdad home until American armored vehicles rolled up and he surrendered, neighbors and relatives said Friday. The former deputy prime minister finds himself in a position he swore he would never face: captured by the United States and facing a possible war crimes trial for his career as Saddam Hussein's sidekick. Some Iraqis, quick to urge hanging or cages for Mr. Hussein...

SADDAM’S deputy PM Tariq Aziz is pleading to move to Britain. The schemer has told his US captors he will reveal all about the Iraqi regime in exchange for a new identity and cushy life here.Cigar-smoking Aziz, 67, was Saddam’s best-known mouthpiece and condemned the UK. Now he wants to live here because he is terrified of being executed by Iraqis and is desperate to dodge US strict justice.Aziz, who gave himself up on Thursday, is the most senior Saddam aide caught so far.Human rights groups last night said: “The guy is a murderous scumbag and we don’t want him...

Aziz phoned friend to fix surrender By Alex Spillius in Baghdad (Filed: 26/04/2003) The demeanour of 20 members of a prominent Baghdad family locked firmly behind the iron gates of a suburban mansion yesterday afternoon was positively funereal. But there had not been a death in the family, there had been a surrender. Late on Thursday evening their leading light, the former foreign minister Tariq Aziz, had given himself up to American forces. The man who had once been the smooth-talking public face of Iraq to millions in the West had suffered two recent heart attacks. Now he decided to...

CIA asks Aziz: where is Saddam? (Filed: 25/04/2003)Tariq Aziz: surrendered to US forces in Baghdad The CIA is questioning Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi former deputy prime minister, who gave himself up in Baghdad. US Central Command said that Aziz is being held in allied custody after he surrendered to American forces last night. The confirmation came as American forces said Farouk Hijazi, Saddam's former spy chief, had been captured near Iraq's border with Syria. Hijazi was the director of external operations for Iraqi intelligence when Saddam ordered agents to assassinate President George Bush Snr in the mid-1990s. He is not...

Now that Tariq Aziz has surrendered to coalition forces, some are saying that the West should cut a deal with him to gain information on the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. Before thought is given to giving him immunity, let’s examine the record of this man, who portrays himself as a cultured, educated diplomat and the benign face of the regime. He became Deputy Prime Minister in 1979, the year in which Saddam formally took power. From then on, at every terrible twist and turn, he has been heavily involved in the bloody decisions made by...

Friday April 25th, 2003, 10:22 Iraqis judge Aziz capture to be a big catch by the USA Baghdad (Reuters) -- In the streets of Baghdad the news of the capture on Friday of the Iraqi vice-governor Tarik Aziz was met with great relief. Many Iraqis judged this as proof that the deposed president, Saddam Hussein, in the case he is even still living, was now really isolated. "I heard the good news this morning. This is more proof that Saddam is defeated", street vendor Mohammad Hareth said. "If Aziz will surrender to the Americans, then who is still sticking by...

U.S. Optimistic After Aziz Surrender By MATT KELLEY .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials, pleased to have former Iraqi official Tariq Aziz in custody, say they're optimistic even more wanted Iraqis will be captured in coming days. Aziz, a former deputy prime minister and foreign minister under Saddam Hussein, was the 12th man on the American list of 55 most wanted Iraqis taken into custody. The Pentagon says three others, including Saddam's cousin Ali ``Chemical Ali'' Hassan al-Majid, have been killed. A spokesman at Central Command headquarters in Qatar, Lt. Herb Josey, said Aziz surrendered on Thursday....

The Pentagon (CNSNews.com) - U.S.-led military troops took custody on Thursday of two important officials from the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Not long after former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz surrendered in Baghdad, coalition troops captured Faruk Hijazi, who was a longtime member of Iraq's intelligence service. "We have him," a Pentagon official said of Aziz on Thursday, noting that the outspoken defender of Saddam since the 1991 Gulf War was "pretty easy to identify." Aziz last appeared in public on March 19, when he held a news conference in Baghdad to dispel rumors that he had fled...

Former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz is being questioned by the CIA over the fate of Saddam Hussein and the whereabouts of chemical and biological weapons. Aziz is the biggest catch so far for US forces hunting down Saddam's closest allies and could reveal the innermost secrets of the regime.A military source said: "He knows a lot and we hope he's going to share some of it. We knew the cards would start to fall and we would get the big players."He's the biggest catch so far and it's an important sign to people that it is all over...

<p>Holds valuable info.</p> <p>April 25, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - Tariq Aziz, one of the most recognizable and infamous figures from Saddam Hussein's regime, has surrendered to U.S. forces, Pentagon officials said last night.</p> <p>Aziz, who was Iraq's foreign minister and then deputy prime minister, gave up to U.S. forces in the Baghdad area this week after days of negotiation through an intermediary, military sources said.</p>

Iraqis Hail Surrender of Tareq AzizFri April 25, 2003 02:08 AM ET By Nadim Ladki BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis on Friday hailed the surrender of high profile former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz to U.S. forces, saying it proved the Saddam Hussein era was over. With the best-known face of Saddam's ousted government in their control, U.S. officials guiding the reconstruction of the war-ravaged country predicted some government ministries could resume work by the end of next week. But wrangling continued at the United Nations over control of the Iraqi oil revenues that the United States wants to use to...

IT was a white Christmas in Baghdad. At the home of Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister and a Roman Catholic, a high-powered group met for a celebration dinner. Tucking into turkey with all the trimmings was Aziz, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, or "comical Ali", who was information minister during the recent Gulf war, Nuji Sabri Al-Hadithi, the foreign minister, and Hamid Yusuf Hammiadi, the culture minister, as well as 15 to 20 other officials. Sitting alongside this who's who of Ba'ath party hierarchy was George Galloway, the MP for Glasgow Kelvin. Mr Galloway says he is not sure whether this...

The United States claimed its biggest scalp in the hunt for former members of the ousted Iraqi regime last night when Tariq Aziz surrendered to American troops. While ranked only No 43 in Washington's list of the 55 most wanted leaders, the most familiar face in the regime, aside from Saddam Hussein himself, belonged to his unctuous deputy prime minister. Ever since Saddam seized the presidency in 1979, Aziz proved a faithful purveyor of lies and propaganda. As Iraq's long-serving foreign minister and conduit to the West, Mr Aziz lost no opportunity to whitewash his master's excesses and place the...

ABC reporting Tariq Aziz is in custody!

George Galloway, the Labour backbencher, received money from Saddam Hussein's regime, taking a slice of oil earnings worth at least £375,000 a year, according to Iraqi intelligence documents found by The Daily Telegraph in Baghdad. A confidential memorandum sent to Saddam by his spy chief said that Mr Galloway asked an agent of the Mukhabarat secret service for a greater cut of Iraq's exports under the oil for food programme. He also said that Mr Galloway was profiting from food contracts and sought "exceptional" business deals. Mr Galloway has always denied receiving any financial assistance from Baghdad. Asked to explain...

Senior Iraqi officers have scattered across the Middle East after fleeing Baghdad as the assault on the city began, according to some senior Iraqis in London who have kept close links with key figures within the country. All of them have false passports and could try to later hide in countries like Pakistan or Malaysia or Indonesia, said Ali Haitham Rashid Wihaib, who was Saddam Hussain's former head of protocol. He added that the Syrian authorities were keeping some of their "embarrassing guests" including generals and ministers hidden because of the US pressure. He, claimed in a daily, that Saddam...

FOR SALE: riverside residence, slightly looted. One careful Christian Baathist owner, whereabouts unknown. Likely to be finding alternative accommodation shortly. Times reader. Seeking long lease. You do not have to look far inside the shattered doors of the house of Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, to work out who it belonged to. Behind the high walls of the palatial villa in Baghdad’s affluent al-Jadariyah district, the white window latticework combining the eight-pointed Baath party star with the Christian cross immediately points to Mr Aziz, one of the most durable survivors of Saddam Hussein’s regime. In a charred heap...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Looters sat at the entrance of Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz's villa, exchanging niceties in poor English with US marines who had spent the night in the residence of the deposed Iraqi regime's best known figure abroad. They couldn't wait to go in but the American soldiers ordered them to step back. "I think it is the (deputy) prime minister's house. We spent the night there and we're leaving," said the commander of the unit comprising three armored vehicles. He was not unduly concerned about what would happen later. "It is not our job. Let them do...