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LONDON (AP) — The long awaited British inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been published. Led by former senior civil servant John Chilcot, the report took over seven years to prepare and runs over two million words. The report did not analyze the legality of the invasion and instead focused on the British decision-making process in the run up to the war in 2003.

What do you think of Suskind's allegation? I believe it 69% I don't believe it 31% Total Votes: 16,169

A small Connecticut-based company Herobuilders, has produced a mail-order doll of late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's final minutes at the gallows. Despite having received a death threat on Thursday, Herobuilder's founder and owner, Emilio Vicale told Adnkronos International (AKI) he does not regret creating the doll or feel it is inappropriate. "What about Saddam's gassing of thousands of people - was that in good taste?" he asked, referring to Saddam's alleged responsibility for the gassing of 5,000 Kurds and poisoning of thousands more.

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A judge trying Saddam Hussein for the killing of 148 Shi'ite villagers in the 1980s will set a date on Monday for a verdict in a case that carries the maximum penalty of death by hanging, court officials said. A year after the case opened in a U.S.-backed courtroom in Baghdad, chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman will hold a closed session to review witness testimonies and evidence and announce a final date for a verdict for former Iraqi president Saddam and seven of his top lieutenants for crimes against humanity. "The judge needs to review procedural and administrative issues and...

As part of our Guest Essay series, I asked Joseph Shahda to write for us on the topic of translating Sadaam Hussien's captured documents. Mr. Shahda, who goes by the screen name "jveritas" on FreeRepublic.com, has had a article written about him in the Boston Globe: ( http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/03/18/us_puts_iraqi_documents_on_the_web/ ) "Joseph Shahda earns his living as an engineer. But in his spare time, he's an intelligence agent, working to ferret out the truth about the regime of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. When the US government on Thursday began publishing captured Iraqi government documents on the Internet, Shahda eagerly began to...

Judges postponed their verdict in Saddam Hussein's trial Tuesday, a long-awaited decision that once held out the hope of healing Iraq's wounds but now threatens to spark even more sectarian violence. The verdict had been expected on Oct. 16 but was delayed until at least the end of the month while judges take extra time to review the evidence and make sure their case is airtight. But no matter how well crafted, the verdict could worsen violence that is already claiming dozens of lives daily. A death sentence for the former leader could enrage his Sunni Muslim supporters, while anything...

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s sons, Qusay and Uday Hussein, are killed after a three-hour firefight with U.S. forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. It is widely believed that the two men were even more cruel and ruthless than their notorious father, and their death was celebrated among many Iraqis. Uday and Qusay were 39 and 37 years old, respectively, when they died. Both are said to have amassed considerable fortunes through their participation in illegal oil smuggling.

Attorneys for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby attacked plans by prosecutors in the CIA leak case to submit a New York Times op-ed containing handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney. In a court filing late Friday night, Libby’s lawyers argued that their client testified before the grand jury that he did not see this document until it was shown to him by the FBI in November 2003. The op-ed article by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, which was published July 6, 2003, argued that the Bush administration “twisted” intelligence “to exaggerate the Iraqi threat” in the run-up to a U.S.-led invasion....

NEW HAVEN — Federal customs agents seized a Mercedes-Benz on Thursday from an Army reservist who said the armor-plated, bulletproof luxury car likely belonged to Saddam Hussein. First Sgt. William von Zehle said he bought the car while serving in Iraq. U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement agents said the car, which was also equipped with loudspeakers and hidden microphones, was being treated as a "possible war trophy." "It belonged to the former Iraqi regime," ICE spokesman Dean Boyd said. He said investigators were unsure whether the former Iraqi dictator actually owned it. Von Zehle, of Ridgefield, was quoted in news...

sadam told judges Wednesday that he ordered the trials of Shiites who eventually were executed in the 1980s and said their lands should be confiscated, but he insisted that those actions were not criminal.

AMMAN, Jordan -- In a letter to an old friend, Saddam Hussein vowed to sacrifice himself for the cause of Palestine and Iraq.

The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad received $3 billion from illegal oil and arms deals with the former Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. The House International Relations Committee released documents outlining the huge profits accumulated by Syria in serving as a way station for illegal Iraqi oil exports and arms imports. The documents, supplied by the Internal Revenue Service, pointed to revenues earned by then-Syrian Defense Minister Moustapha Tlas for enabling weapons sales to Iraq in the years that led up to the U.S.-led war against Baghdad in 2003. At a House hearing on July 27, officials warned that...

When Senator Norm Coleman (R., Minn.) last year compared the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal to “an onion,” he had just one thing wrong: The more you peel, the bigger it gets. The latest insights into this cosmos of U.N.-fostered corruption come by way of a bipartisan report just released by the Senate Permanent Subcomittee on Investigations, or PSI, led by Coleman. In detail, with supporting documentation, the report shows how Saddam Hussein, via Oil-for-Food, gave rights to buy millions of barrels of underpriced Iraqi oil to two politicians who supported his regime: former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and British...

34 Ba'ath Party loyalists now form command structure of Iraq insurgency Janurary 24th, 2005 http://www.geostrategy-direct.com BAGHDAD — The U.S. military has determined that 34 senior officials in the former Saddam Hussein regime have formed a command of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. In December 2004 the U.S. military revised its assessment of the Sunni insurgency command. The revisions resulted from the U.S. invasion in Fallujah in November, during which troops discovered documents in insurgency strongholds that identified leaders of the exiled Saddam movement. The information from Fallujah bolstered the belief that Saddam operatives, rather than Islamic volunteers, were responsible for...

Saddam Hussein is spending his time in solitary confinement writing poetry, gardening, reading the Qur'an and snacking on American muffins and cookies. One of his poems is about his arch-enemy George Bush. The intriguing glimpse of the former dictator's daily routine as he awaits trial on charges of war crimes and genocide was given to the Guardian yesterday by Iraq's human rights minister, Bakhtiar Amin, who visited Saddam in detention on Saturday. Mr Amin, a longtime Iraqi human rights campaigner who had family members killed by the former regime, said he could not bring himself to speak to Saddam but...

55 yes 45 no for now

A detailed analysis of Saddam Hussein's secret money-laundering techniques shows here for the first time how he used the same offshore money launderers as Osama bin Laden. That covert money network, based in the tax havens of Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Panama and Nassau, helped bankroll the war machines of both Iraq and al-Qaeda. More than 1,000 pages of confidential corporate, bank and legal documents show how the network functioned. The papers come from court cases filed in several European countries, from corporate records, from investigations by Italian police, from a report of the Kroll international investigative agency, and from private sources....

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Good evening. Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors. Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world. Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons. I want to explain why I have decided,...

Iraq minister says Saddam's WMD carefully hidden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Updates with comments on Saddam's trial, Iraq's unity) By Anna Mudeva SOFIA, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Iraq's foreign minister said on Thursday Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, which inspectors have failed to find, were carefully hidden but Hoshiyar Zebari said he was confident they could be discovered. "I have every belief that some of these weapons could be found as we move forward," Zebari, an Iraqi Kurd, told a news conference in Sofia. "They have been hidden in certain areas. The system of hiding was very sophisticated." The United States and...