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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate panel has begun an inquiry to determine what a top official in Saddam Hussein's government told the CIA about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in late 2002 as the Bush administration made its case for war. ADVERTISEMENT The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said in a September 8 report that it launched the investigation after the CIA's former chief of European clandestine operations appeared on the CBS' "60 Minutes" news magazine in April. The official, Tyler Drumheller, told CBS that the Iraqi government source had said Iraq had no active unconventional weapons program. Drumheller's...

Scores of masked gunmen went on an audacious daylight rampage through the flashpoint Iraqi town of Fallujah yesterday morning, launching twin attacks on a police station and civil defence compound that left at least 23 people dead and 35 wounded. At least 14 of the dead were lightly-armed police officers, recently recruited to the force, who could offer little resistance to the heavily-armed gunmen, suspected of being foreign fighters. About 70 raiders shouting "God is great" fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machineguns at policemen, throwing grenades as they cleared the police station room by room and released at least 20...

Note: Photos included. SNIPPET: "Shin Bet arrests eight men from northern city of Nazareth, local council of Yafa an-Naseriyye over weapons offences, discussing possibility of murdering soldiers, Pope Benedict XVI" SNIPPET: "The eight indicted men were identified as Bader Salah, 33, of Yafa an-Naseriyye; Suhil Salah, 26, of Yafa an-Naseriyye; Misara Yaad, 28, of Yafa an-Naseriyye; Abdel Rahman Abu Salim, 19, of Nazareth; Ibrahim Muhammad Abu Aaqab, 27, of Nazareth; Bilal Ubeid, 29, of Yafa an-Naseriyye; and Sabri Narni, 29 of Yafa an-Naseriyye. The ninth defendant, who was a minor when he committed the alleged acts. was not named due...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) -- An airplane that raised questions in this college town is being used by the FBI to monitor people who might have terrorist connections, agency officials acknowledged. The FBI denied knowledge of the plane earlier this week after aviation officials disclosed that the aircraft was conducting law enforcement surveillance. Agent Thomas V. Fuentes said the FBI issued the denial because a reporter asked if the airplane is doing electronic surveillance, which it is not. Fuentes and agent James H. Davis said the FBI is not aware of any threat to Bloomington or the state, but is watching...

The CIA learned in late September 2002 from a high-level member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle that Iraq had no past or present contact with Osama bin Laden and that the Iraqi leader considered bin Laden an enemy of the Baghdad regime, according to a recent Senate Intelligence Committee report. Although President Bush and other senior administration officials were at that time regularly linking Hussein to al-Qaeda, the CIA's highly sensitive intelligence supporting the contrary view was apparently not passed on to the White House or senior Bush policymakers.

WASHINGTON — In a "60 Minutes" interview on April 23, Tyler Drumheller, a former chief of the CIA's Europe division, made a sensational charge. He claimed that President Bush and his White House ignored intelligence before the invasion of Iraq indicating that Saddam Hussein had no had weapons of mass destruction. On the CBS-TV show, and in subsequent media interviews that appeared throughout the world, Drumheller said that the White House was excited about the fact that the CIA was getting information straight from Naji Sabri, the then Iraqi foreign minister. But when the White House found out this source...

American universities rank among the best in the world, but they also boast another, more dubious distinction: They are home to some of the world’s most radical academics. Last month, one of these select individuals, UC Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian, brought his hate-filled show to two extremist Islamic Centers in South Florida. Both of these institutions are in the process of building large-scale mosques in their respective cities. And, given that their guest had previously called for attacks on the United States, the question naturally arose: Were these institutions looking to make friends in the community or to start a holy war?Past...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the period before the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein's foreign minister Naji Sabri, was a secret paid source of the CIA, "NBC Nightly News" reported on Monday. Citing unnamed current and former U.S. intelligence officials, NBC said Sabri provided details of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be more accurate than CIA estimates. Intelligence sources said Sabri was paid more than $100,000 through an intermediary in a September 2002 deal brokered by the French, NBC reported. Sabri may have thought he was working with the French, but some U.S. intelligence officials believe he knew...

Saddam's foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn't agency listen? In the period before the Iraq war, the CIA and the Bush administration erroneously believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding major programs for weapons of mass destruction. Now NBC News has learned that for a short time the CIA had contact with a secret source at the highest levels within Saddam Hussein’s government, who gave them information far more accurate than what they believed. It is a spy story that has never been told before, and raises new questions about prewar intelligence. What makes the story significant is...

From leaky roofs to secret agents: how the files I found in Iraq's looted foreign ministry cast light on the paranoid world of Saddam Hussein How many Iraqi officials does it take to fix the leaky roof of a diplomat's house in London? How long does a skilled translator need to convert one of George Galloway's parliamentary speeches into Arabic? In almost 1, 000 pages of Arabic prose, each stamped with the Eagle crest of Iraq, the files found inside the foreign ministry in Baghdad cast a somewhat surreal light on the questions that turned the bureaucratic wheels of Saddam...

U.S. drops top Iraqi general from most-wanted list SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COMThursday, April 24, 2003 The United States has left out the commander of President Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard from a list of most wanted Iraqis. Gen. Maher Sufian does not appear on the U.S. list of 55 most wanted Iraqis. Sufian was commander of the six Republican Guard units responsible for the defense of Baghdad. The absence of Sufian from the U.S. list has sparked claims that the Republican Guard commander struck a deal with the U.S.-led coalition. Arab diplomatic sources said Sufian is believed to have...

LONDON (Reuters) - Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said on Friday that Saddam Hussein was alive, but refused to say whether he had seen the Iraqi president. "He was seen yesterday meeting with ministers," Sabri told BBC Radio in an interview from Baghdad. But asked if he had seen him personally, he replied: "It's none of your business to ask this question. "The President is well, the leadership are well...and they are functioning as normal." Iraqi television showed footage on Thursday of Saddam chairing a meeting of senior ministers. The television did not say when the meeting took place....

Sabri's safe entry to Syria a success for Iraqis Damascus, March 24, IRNA -- Experts believe that successful arrival of Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri in Syria on his way to Cairo, where he would attend the meeting of Arab Foreign Ministers, marks a big success for the Iraqi nation despite a psychological warfare launched by the US and Britain. Sabri's safe entry to Damascus proves the weak intelligence of the coalition forces contrary to their claims at the start of the war on Thursday, experts say. Sabri, clad in Arab costume, left Baghdad aboard a car on Saturday and...