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The Blogs of Freedom Our family's menorah rests on the mantle next to a beautiful noble fir draped with Christmas ornaments. The big holiday dinner will include the Hanukkah staple of potato latkes with sour cream, and a succulent ham from Hempler's of Bellingham. I know — not kosher. My late fraternal grandfather Jacob would not approve. Grandpa fled to Brooklyn from Ukraine in the early 1900s to escape the periodic pogroms against Jews, under Russian czarist rule. He worked his way up from house painter and wallpaper hanger to a building contractor, earning for his two sons access to...

Iraq city governor jailed for 14 years By Colin Freeman in Baghdad, Evening Standard 3 November 2003 The US-appointed governor of an Iraqi city was jailed for 14 years today after using his new-found powers to rob and terrorise his own people. US troops appointed Haydar Abdul Mun'im governor of the holy city of Najaf after he won their trust with tip-offs about Ba'ath Party fighters. But within weeks of taking office in April, locals had dubbed him "the Second Saddam" after he began stealing cars, extorting public funds from bank officials and kidnapping anybody who got in his way....

AFP (2004-10-Janvier) Reports of widespread discontent continue throughout the so-called SunCoast Triangle, where embittered supporters of ousted leader Gray Davis are protesting the ongoing losses of water, power, and food in the regions two major hotspots - LA county and the San Francisco Bay/Oakland enclave. "We lost electricity at times before this catastrophe before - but we never had water shortages and where is the food?", decried a spokeswoman for the Bay Area Action Taskforce Headquarters (BAATH), a group of hard-line supporters of the former regime committed to its reinstatement. Western observers have noted that the ongoing string of looting,...

<p>September 12, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - U.S. military forces in northern Iraq captured 80 foreign fighters from several Arab countries on suspicion that they are part of a new al Qaeda offensive against American troops, officials said yesterday.</p> <p>Pentagon officials said the suspected terrorists were nabbed by the Army's 101st Airborne Division and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment between Mosul and the Syrian border.</p>

Mark of Saddam spells death in a city bent on revenge By Paul McGeough August 25, 2003 The sun is about to set and we're sitting in the oasis of Talib Misad's rose garden. But as the retired lawyer speaks in a tiny whisper another lawyer chatting with us puts down his iced water and walks away - this conversation is just too dangerous. Deadly terror strikes and sabotage attacks on oil and water facilities have intensified the tension in Iraq in the past week, but since the end of the war a dreadful story has gone unnoticed in this...

Resistance to U.S. Is Loosely Organized FALLUJAH, Iraq, June 21 -- Groups of armed fighters from the Baath Party and security agencies of ousted President Saddam Hussein have organized a loose network called the Return to harass U.S. occupation forces, with the goal of driving them out of the country, and the group is partially responsible for the string of fatal attacks on American soldiers in recent weeks, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.The intensified resistance has been reinforced by the participation of foreign fighters coming into Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator of Iraq, told reporters at a...

BALAD, Iraq (AP) -- American forces have launched a fourth major offensive against insurgents in central Iraq to blunt expected attacks against U.S. soldiers during upcoming holidays marking historical events of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, military officials said. U.S. military officials have received intelligence reports -- including letters addressed to community leaders urging attacks against Americans -- indicating that pro-Saddam and Islamist insurgents plan anti-U.S. actions. The strikes would be timed to the July 14, 1958 anniversary of the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy and the July 17, 1968 coup by Saddam's Baathist Party. The Army's 4th Infantry Division...

The rain was coming down. The traffic on Rockville Pike was the usual aggravating slog. At the California Tortilla restaurant just off the pike, on a patio boasting a view of a suburban parking lot, nearly 70 people gathered around cafe tables with strangers, writing letters to people they didn't know. A Howard Dean "meetup" is part Jane Austen, part Bill Gates. Across the country Wednesday night, thousands of people drawn together through the power of the Internet dusted off their epistolary skills, hand-writing letters to Iowa Democrats urging them to support the former Vermont governor. "I am not some...

After a year of upbeat profiles depicting him as a straight-talking, rabble-rousing, Bush-bashing maverick, Howard Dean is starting to get slapped around by the press. Now that the former long shot has boosted himself into the top tier of Democratic presidential candidates, journalists are diagnosing the good doctor's fumbles and foibles with microscopic precision. And his sometimes testy relations with the Fourth Estate aren't helping. "He doesn't suffer reporters or fools gladly," says Jake Tapper, who has profiled Dean and wrote about him last week for the New York Times op-ed page. "He doesn't like to play the Washington game....

CAMP BOOM, Iraq - U.S. forces launched a massive operation early Sunday to crush insurgents and capture senior figures from the ousted regime in a show of force designed to stem a wave of deadly attacks on U.S. troops. The operation, dubbed "Desert Sidewinder," is taking place in a huge swath of central Iraq stretching from the Iranian border to the areas north of Baghdad, and is expected to last for several days, military officials said. Americans arrested a man in Khalis, 45 miles north of Baghdad. He is suspected of recruiting young men to launch attacks on Americans, according...

"Sub Rosa Vepres" Posted by Doc Farmer Saturday, June 28, 2003 We’re all familiar with the Latin phrase ''Sub Rosa'' (under the rose) which stands for something secret or hidden. Well, now I believe we should add a new phrase to the lexicon: ''Sub Rosa Vepres,'' or under the rose bush. Thanks to our friendly neighbourhood Iraqi Nuclear Weapons Developers, that is. Yes, you’ve read by now that one of these scientists under Saddam Hussein’s employ (see also: death threat) was ordered to hide critical atomic weapons development equipment in his back yard, under (of all things) a rose bush....

Baathists aren't only angry ones, Iraqis sayDisputing U.S. reports, many say Hussein backers are not behind attacks.By Tom Lasseter and Natalie PompilioInquirer Staff Writers FALLUJAH, Iraq - Ahmed Manaa's face was dark with anger. He was tired of the U.S. troops rumbling up and down his city's streets in their big tanks, pointing their guns at passing cars. They are nothing but occupiers, he said, and they should go back to America, before another war begins.He doesn't fit the profile of anti-U.S. elements whom American army commanders so often describe: He doesn't mourn the fall of Saddam Hussein and has...

"Amnesty International? Try Travesty International Instead" Posted by Doc Farmer Saturday, May 31, 2003 Here's a newsflash. Amnesty International, that lib/dem/soc/commie group of pantywaists who complain about torture but do nothing to stop it, have declared that the U.S. has made the world more dangerous because of our war against terrorism. Their grasp of logic even weaker than the Venus de Milo's grasp of a basketball, ain't it? Amnesty International's latest drift into the realm of fantasy is entombed in their latest release, (http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/index-eng) which states that, shock of shocks, it's All America's Fault. Our war against terrorism, our war...

Ba'ath Party teacher accuses 'war crimes' British colonel of staging mock execution By Michael Smith in Rumailah (Filed: 23/05/2003) The Ba'ath Party representative in the first town occupied by the Royal Irish Regiment is thought to be the source for four of the five allegations of "war crimes" made against Col Tim Collins. Ayoub Younis Nasser, the former headmaster of the al-Nukhaila school in Rumailah, 30 miles west of Basra, took his unsubstantiated claims further yesterday, claiming that Col Collins also subjected him and his son to a mock execution. Mr Nasser, who is now an ordinary teacher, alleged that...

REBUILDING IN THE GULF Iraqis exact revenge on Saddam's regime Former Baath Party officials killed in systematic assassinations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: May 20, 2003 1:25 p.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Liberated Iraqi citizens are taking matters in their own hands and have begun assassinating former ruling Baath Party officials, reports the Washington Post. The killings of mid-level government functionaries and Baathist icons, according to the Post, appear to have increased following the U.S. decree last Friday that prohibits senior party officials from holding positions in the top three tiers of Iraq's postwar government. In one example, the singer Daoud Qais, known...

Today the Kurdish city of Kirkuk has come to a halt after the ethnic fights between the Kurds and the Arabs. Kurds have set up checkpoints on the roads leading to the outskirts of the city, to stop Arab Tribes advancing to Kirkuk. These tribes are loyal to Saddam Hussein, coming from Hawijah and its surroundings. The Arab tribes, while chanting pro-Saddam slogans, killed dozens of civilian Kurds on that road yesterday. American jets fired at the Arab Tribes but the casualty is not yet known. Observers warn that a tragedy will occur if the situation is not controlled as...

BAGHDAD: Western administrators may ban from public office between 15,000-30,000 die-hard Saddam Hussein loyalists of Iraq's dissolved Baath Party, senior officials said on Friday. But Iraqi intellectuals said the United States risked emulating Saddam by purging the Iraqi bureaucracy in favour of loyalty to America as criteria for hiring civil servants as it restores government to Baghdad. Two senior officials of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) -- which runs Iraq until an Iraqi interim authority takes over -- told reporters they recognised the risks of such a vetting process in a society where up to 700,000 people...

The United States declared Saddams Baath party dead late Sunday, with the war's commander telling Iraqis that the instrument of theior deposed dictator's power was dissolved and promising to purge its influence from the country it dominated for 35 years.General Tommy Franks message delivered in Arabic by an announcer on the coalitions information radio, broadcast a clear message over the AM radio waves across postwar Iraq:Any activity by Baath Party holdouts who opposed United States occupation would not be tolerated.'The Arab Baath Socialist Party is dissolved,' Franks said, but high difficulites remain in eliminating it.American Administrators are struggling to balance...

Iraqi scientist conducted research that led to bioweapons, U.S. saysWASHINGTON, May 12 — Dr. Rihab Taha, the Iraqi scientist credited with starting her nation’s biological weapons program, has surrendered, military and intelligence officials told NBC News on Monday. Taha, who has become known as “Dr. Germ,” turned herself in to American forces in Baghdad after a week of negotiations, they said. HER SURRENDER on Sunday came a week after another leading Iraqi scientist, Dr. Huda Ammash, was taken into U.S. custody. However, Ammash — dubbed “Mrs. Anthrax” in the Western media — has so far failed to provide anything...

Until last month, Syria and Iraq had a lot in common. Both nations were Baathist dictatorships. Both openly supported Palestinians terrorists. And both maintained an active interest in developing weapons of mass destruction. The difference, of course, was at the top. While Iraq was ruled for decades by an unstable megalomaniac, Syria's long-time ruler, Hafez Assad, was conservative and savvy. Assad's special skill was that he knew how to present himself as a necessary evil. Thus, in the 1970s and 1980s, Washington tacitly supported the entry of Syrian troops into Lebanon as a means of ending that country's chaotic civil...

An Open Letter to President Jacques Chiraq Dear Jack, I'm an American. And as an American, there are some things I want to get off my chest. Colin Powell would probably make this sound all nice and fancy, but I'm not a diplomat, as the next few paragraphs will make painfully clear to you. I don't like you very much, Jack. I don't like you, your government or your country. I think as allies go you make a passable enemy. You sure as shootin' could never be mistaken as a friend. Not to put a fine point on it, you...

BASRA, Iraq, April 18 -- Anwar Abdul Razak said both his ears were cut off. Saad Abdul Wahab said his jailers placed electrodes on his navel to administer shocks. Nabil Abdul Ali said his shoulders were dislocated and an electric wire was wrapped around his genitals and attached to a hand-cranked machine. Zuhair Kubba said he was hung upside down and beaten with an iron rod. These are the tortures they describe, and more: a prisoner forced to sit on a heated metal stove, electric shocks applied to genitals, a small blade used to slash a prisoner's back. Even doctors...

<p>WASHINGTON, April 18 (UPI) -- Iraqi Kurds turned over another key member of the Iraqi regime, U.S. Central Command announced Friday.</p> <p>Samir Abd al-Aziz al-Najim, one of the top 55 leaders of the regime and the four of clubs in the "most wanted" deck of cards being used by the U.S. military, was handed over late Thursday to coalition special operations forces near Mosul in northern Iraq.</p>

Now that most of the fighting in Iraq is over, as Donald Rumsfeld has said, the day of rebuilding Iraq’s tattered country has begun. However, one must remember that our war on terrorism has not paused, just like we didn’t stop after dealing with Afghanistan. As the administration keeps pointing out, there is yet another country in that very same region that we must deal with. And that is Syria. Syria is a country situated on the northern border of Israel. It is a country which has been under military-Baath Party rule since the 1963 “March Revolution” when it came...

SYRIA is beginning to wobble; its old regime could soon fall. Behind its resolute rejection of Washington’s accusations, its Baathist regime is weakening. It may be the first Middle East domino to topple after the end of war in Iraq. The man whose finger is on the Damascus domino is not Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. Defense Secretary. The victor will be Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, who is now standing his strongest chance of toppling the old guard who have blocked his reforms. This is the domino theory, an integral part of the multi-layered logic for war with Iraq. No...

Basra, Iraq - Its tentacles were everywhere, its spies ubiquitous, its threats thinly veiled and its celebration of one man, Saddam Hussein, adulatory. It controlled schools, hospitals, the police, the army, the oil industry, hotels, the courts - indeed, almost every facet of Iraqi life. For it, children spied on parents, wives on husbands, sisters on brothers. For three decades, the Baath Party permeated Iraqi society to a degree similar to the Nazis in Germany and communists in China during the Cultural Revolution. It tortured and murdered its opponents, real and imagined, sought to exterminate whole ethnic groups, and eviscerated...

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...

Dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of Iraqi officials escaped to Syria, according to fresh assessments by intelligence organizations including the U.S., British and Israeli services, which were surprised by the large numbers involved after initial estimates that only a few dozen made their way to Syria during or prior to the war. But while the escapees include relatively high-ranking officials, and at least one minister, Saddam Hussein and his inner circle are not believed to be in Syria. The large number of Iraqis who found refuge in Syria is why Washington and London have stepped up pressure on Damascus and the...

BUILDING a new Iraq will be hard. For this is a country where the Ba’ath Party has controlled every aspect of life for decades, where no one has been allowed to be independent, where the whole of civil society has been run by the regime. Brainwashing and violence were normal. To get a good job meant allegiance to the party. You could not go to a shop to buy concrete for a new house without permission of a party member. In the small village near Baghdad where I grew up there was only one school, but even there, almost all...

Busy Baghdad Highway to Damascus -US Close to Military Action against Iraqi and other Targets in SyriaDay 26 of Iraq War Round about noon on Sunday, April 13, US commanders realized that, while they were preoccupied with the civic needs of Baghdad, they were missing the biggest spectacle of the war – the 2003 Exodus from Iraq. Members of Saddam’s regime in their thousands were pouring out of Baghdad and Saddam’s last strongholds of Tikrit, Samarra and al Ramadi and heading for the Syrian frontier and Damascus. DEBKAfile’s intelligence and military sources report that Syrian military intelligence teams waited...

Cyanide-Shooting Guns Found in Baghdad .c The Associated Press BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Soldiers searching homes in a Baath Party enclave on Sunday turned up weapons straight out of James Bond movies - among them suitcases that concealed submachine guns and air pistols that fired cyanide pellets. The men of A Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, found 21 briefcases specially designed to hold Heckler and Koch MP-5K 9 mm submachine guns. The guns could be fired by pulling a trigger on the handle of the case. There were also several silencers for 9 mm pistols and a gold-plated MP-5...

Name Position Status Saddam Hussein President of Iraq/CINC of Military Possibly Dead Qusay Hussein SSO, SRG & RGFC Commander Possibly Dead Uday Hussein Saddam Fedayeen Commander Possibly Dead Abid Hamid Mahmud Al Tikriti Presidential Secretary (WMD Release Authority) At large Ali Hasan Majid Pres. Advisor, Fmr South Reg Cmdr Believed Dead Izzat Ibrahim al Duri Vice Chair of the RCC, North Reg Cmdr At large Hani Abd Latif Tilfa al Tikriti SSO Director At large Kamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan Tikriti RG Secretary At large Barzan Abd Ghafur Sulayman al Tikriti SRG Commander At large Muzahim Sa'b Hassan al Tikriti...

LAST week as I crossed the sluggish Tigris on a warm sunny spring morning I glimpsed my last act of war on Saddam's Iraq. Plumes of grey smoke soared skywards from B-52 strikes on Iraqi Army positions along the banks of the river that separates Ba'athist Syria from what is now ex-Ba'athist Iraq. From the elevated vantage point of the rooftops of police stations and village schools, groups of Syrian men watched American air power pulverise the hapless, hopeless forces still fortifying frontier posts in defence of the fast fading power of Saddam Hussein. My companion, Zalrahdin, a cheerful middle-aged...

SADDAM'S 'LOVE SHACK' US troops have discovered what they described as Saddam Hussein's "love shack" in Baghdad. Reports said the secret hideaway resembled "a playboy's fantasy straight from the 1960s". Troops said it reminded them of the Austin Powers spy spoofs. They yelled Powers' catchphrases "yeah, baaabeee" and "shagadelic" as they went from room to room. Associated Press reporters with US forces said the split-level, one bedroom house in central Baghdad had a mirrored bedroom and lamps shaped like women. On the walls were air-brushed paintings of a topless blonde woman and another of a moustached hero battling a crocodile....

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...

<p>Readers of this forum may recall an ugly and disgusting incident that occured in Baghdad, Iraq early on the day of the city's liberation.</p> <p>A rabid Western 'human shield' was captured on video insulting the liberation force of US Marines as they entered the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, shoving propaganda in people's faces, as well impeding official Coalition military activity when the US forces stood guard outside in front of the Palestine Hotel, near the square where the large statue of Saddam was toppled.</p> <p>"Whining "Human Shield" in Front of Palestine Hotel Captured on Video by Lebanon TV (LOL!)"</p>

Is perky "Today Show" host Katie Couric actually rooting for Saddam Hussein to survive U.S.'s military's repeated attempts to take him out? It sure sounded that way during a report she delivered on the fate of the Baghdad Butcher yesterday. While chatting about Saddam with NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, the multi-million-dollar morning host asked whether U.S. officials had been able to "confirm reports he was taken to Tikrit, and then Mosul, and then hopefully to Syria." Hopefully? Surely Ms. Couric didn't mean to suggest that she actually hoped the brutal dictator would escape justice by fleeing to another terrorist-sponsoring...

Latakia April 9, 2003 Jed Babbin NRO Contributor There is too much to report, and most of it will have to wait for the morning. But now, as I write this, many of the most senior of Saddam's henchmen are confirmed to be in Syria. The resort city of Latakia, with its beautiful beaches, now hosts them. And Syrian banks hold many millions that were looted from Iraq. Intelligence sources--the best of them--report that the Saddam regime's top people and their families are now in Syria. It may be the top five or the top ten, but the traffic into...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 4/10/03 - Baghdad, Battle and Freedom, Terrorist Lawyers BREAKING: Baghdad - Weapons hot at Fedayeen HQ BREAKING: Baghdad - Saddam's forces attack American troops from behind a mosque BREAKING: Baghdad - captured Republican Guards Baath compound after overnight battle BREAKING: Baghdad - More recovered Iraqi missiles missed by the stupid UN BREAKING: Baghdad - The Information Minister did not come done for breakfast BREAKING: Baghdad - Freed Iraqis cheer heroes of the USA and Coalition BREAKING: Cairo, Egypt - Terrorists at Egyptian Lawyers Union BREAKING: Damascus, Syria - Terrorists at Syrian Law...

Ollie North: Many Saddam supporters are now swinging from lampposts...

Iraqis Show What They Call Secret Jail .c The Associated Press BASRA, Iraq (AP) - Iraqis showed journalists a white stone jail where they claim Saddam Hussein's secret police for decades tortured inmates with beatings, mutilations, electric shocks and chemical baths. The jail, known as the ``White Lion,'' was charred and half-demolished Tuesday after two days of bombing by British forces fighting for control of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. People taken behind the jail's sandstone facade usually did not come out, residents said. Hundreds of Iraqis came to see the now-empty jail, according to British press reports. Relatives of missing...

Syria sits smack in the middle of coalition leaders' radar screens and is next on the list of countries targeted for "regime change," followed by Iran and Libya, according to Bush administration officials. The London Telegraph reported Syria was among the topics discussed by President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair during their summit in Belfast yesterday.

The Middle East's lack of democracy was demonstrated by the way Bashar al-Assad was anointed the new president of Syria, a position he assumed upon the death of Hafez al-Assad on June 10, 2000. Syria today is just another Middle East monarchy with the outward trappings of being a representative government. In fact, Syria is the al-Assad family business. As the war in Iraq plays out to its inevitable conclusion, Syria has been warned by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to stop providing aid across its borders. "The logical thing," Bashar told the pro-Syrian daily, Al-Safir, published in Lebanon, "is to...

<p>NUMANIYAH, Iraq - The streets of this river city came alive Thursday as residents began to adjust to the presence of hundreds of Marines who spent the day calming citizens' fears, meeting with ranking authorities, finding and destroying weapons caches and rooting out local remnants of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.</p>

In an interview in a Lebanese newspaper, Syrian President Bashar Assad has lashed out at Israel, saying as long as the Jewish state exists it will be a threat. Assad, who has expressed support for Saddam Hussein's regime in the face of coalition action, gave the interview to the pro-Syrian daily Al-Safir. His comments were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute. The Syrian leader claimed the U.S. is doing Israel's bidding in the war on Iraq. "[The Americans] removed their masks and said that they wanted oil and that they wanted to re-draw the map of the region...

THE SAS has arrested four busloads of suspected suicide bombers and would-be fighters in Iraq’s western desert. The men, who are being held as prisoners of war, came from various Arab countries but all carried Syrian passports. They are thought to be among thousands of Arab zealots making their way to the battle front. Syria has issued about 2,000 passports to people volunteering to fight for President Saddam Hussein in recent weeks, raising serious concerns in Britain and America, which suspects Damascus of smuggling war supplies to Iraq. The coalition is to protest to the Syrians. Syrian officials have made...

British soldiers poised to invade Iraq's major southern city of Basra have let a mob loot the local Baath party headquarters to show the US-led war was aimed at helping civilians and ridding the country of the regime's supporters. The building, five kilometres from the city was filled with vast stocks of food, including sacks of rice and grain that came from humanitarian aid deliveries. A British army spokesman said that normally looting was prohibited, because it was a sign that things had got out of control, but in this case it was decided to show Baghdad that the Baath...

BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 28 (UPI) -- Iraqi commander Ali Hassan al-Majeed ordered seven Baath officials in Basra executed on charges of "treason," Lebanon's al-Mustaqbal newspaper reported Friday. The newspaper also said al-Majeed dismissed the Baath party leader and replaced the military commander.

Eventually, there does come a time when it's worthwhile to question things. There is eventually a worthwhile outcome to exploring the endless "why" behind any troublesome situation. Iraq is no exception, and even though the world is in the midst of its worry and despair over the US / British / Australian / Polish war against Iraq, there are things happening that demand an exploration of the "why" behind the "wherefore". Why is France so adamant that the world shouldn't disarm Saddam? Why has the progress, so shining and hopeful, experienced earlier between Russia and the United States, falling quickly...

The Baathist ideology requires continual conflict and bloodshed. Saddam likes to call himself The Struggler, and his rule has been marked by incessant strife. He led his nation through a bloody eight-year war with Iran that produced World War I level casualties, a ruthless campaign of genocide against the Kurds, the invasion of neighbouring Kuwait, a war with the United States and the rest of the world, civil wars in the north and south of his country, and now another potential war with the United States and its allies over weapons of mass destruction. There has been no respite. The...