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Turning on their TVs during the long holiday weekend, Iraqis were greeted by a familiar if unexpected face from their brutal past: Saddam Hussein. The late Iraqi dictator is lauded on a mysterious satellite channel that began broadcasting on the Islamic calendar's anniversary of his 2006 execution. No one seems to know who is bankrolling the so-called Saddam Channel, although the Iraqi government suspects it's Baathists whose political party Saddam once led. The Associated Press tracked down a man in Damascus, Syria named Mohammed Jarboua, who claimed to be its chairman. The Saddam channel, he said, "didn't receive a penny...

Do Dumbocrats really think that Saddam Hussein would stand by and allow Akhmadinejad to get WMD and not want them for himself? Iran and Iraq were the bitterest of enemies, remember. They were constantly at war.

"Hear our cry, Obama." "Deliver us, Obama." Video at link.

PARIS (AFP) - Iran's exiled opposition movement said Thursday it had learned of two previously unknown sites in and near Tehran that are being used to build nuclear warheads. "Resistance sources have managed to uncover two centres that work directly on nuclear armaments and which were until now kept secret," Mehdi Abrihamtchi of the People's Mujahedeen told reporters in Paris, where his group is based. "They are places for research and production of detonation systems which is a major part of the mullah's atomic bomb project," he said, adding that his organisation had passed on the information to the UN...

Saddam Hussein killed more Arabs and Muslims than any other Middle Eastern leader in recent history. He committed genocide against the Kurds, launched wars of aggression against Iran and Kuwait, launched missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia, tortured innocents without compunction and imposed totalitarianism in Iraq. His regime brought unprecedented war, terror and misery to the region. Why, then, does the Butcher of Baghdad remain such a heroic figure to so many Arabs? Saddam Hussein, at the opening of his trial. Photo: AP [file] Two decades ago, famed historian Bernard Lewis wrote a prescient piece in The Wall Street Journal...

History-like hindsight-is supposed to be 20:20, but the deliberate partisan, political divide regarding the invasion of Iraq makes that hard. It's not a new phenomenon. Long ago it was said that the true story of a war can't be told until the last of its veterans has passed away, and only a few months ago did the last World War One veteran go to his great reward. For decades after the Civil War (and some would argue even today) the debate raged on, and the healing of Southern Reconstruction didn't really start culturally until the unity of the Spanish-American War...

History-like hindsight-is supposed to be 20:20, but the deliberate partisan, political divide regarding the invasion of Iraq makes that hard. It’s not a new phenomenon. Conspiracy theories-often fueled by politics-still rage over the 911 attacks and the invasion of Iraq. To that end, even if one believes the relationship between Iraq War and 911 attacks is a conspiracy theory, it’s worthwhile to examine if for no other reason than harvesting a better understanding.

Just as President Jacques Chirac was vehemently arguing against invading Iraq in late 2002, General Philippe Rondot wrote that he had been given the green light to "recover" top officials including Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister. Previously unseen extracts of Gen Rondot's private diaries were reprinted in the newspaper Libération. In a passage dated Dec 3, 2002, the general refers to an "agreement in principle to 'recover' if necessary Mr Aziz and Al-Rafai" – said to be a senior Ba'ath Party politician. The two men were believed to have been considered useful to the French while Gen Rondot knew Aziz...

I posted this Saddam regime document translation on September 9 2006 but in light of the Associated Press despicable act to publish a picture of a dying Marine Hero, I think it is worth reposting again to show what the despicable AP is really about. Document ISGQ-2005-00026108.pdf dated July 25 2000 is a report from an Iraqi Intelligence officer to different Iraqi Intelligence Directorates talking about information provided to them from a trusted source that works in the Associated Press (AP). The information is about the formation a newly formed UN weapons inspectors team called UNMOVIC. Translation of page 4...

An Aids-awareness advert depicting Adolf Hitler having unprotected sex has been condemned by mainstream health charities for stigmatising people infected with the virus. The provocative commercial, which ends with the tag-line "AIDS is a mass murder", aims to scare young people into using condoms by associating the deadly disease with the German dictator. But what appears to be a typical, if steamy, advert for perfume or underwear takes a macabre twist when the camera pans to man's face at the moment of climax - revealing him to be Adolf Hitler. "Of course there are many HIV organisations that run their...

Aseel Kami, recently reported for Reuters that some officials in the current Iraqi government are making a push for the return of millions of Saddam Hussein-era Iraq documents (previously the subject of Congressional inquiries and public controversy) that were seized by the U.S. government and other non-government entities following the former regime's fall in 2003. Kami wrote: The files include intelligence papers on Iraqis kept by Saddam Hussein's feared secret police, information on weapons arsenals, detailed plans of massacres of the regime's enemies and even tapes of songs praising Saddam, officials said. Some of these files have been made public...

Assertions relating to the Saddam Hussein/al-Qaeda controversy have filled countless news articles and books and cannot be completely recapped and answered in a few articles. But despite all of the ink and bandwidth spent on the topic, there are additional questions yet to be fully explored in the eyes of many. When one attempts to dig on questions, such as what meetings actually took place between Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda members — where they took place and when, and what was discussed — the CIA emerges as one of, if not the major, intelligence players involved in public discussion...

Assertions relating to the Saddam Hussein/al-Qaeda controversy have filled countless news articles and books and cannot be completely recapped and answered in a few articles. But despite all of the ink and bandwidth spent on the topic, there are additional questions yet to be fully explored in the eyes of many. When one attempts to dig on questions, such as what meetings actually took place between Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda members — where they took place and when, and what was discussed — the CIA emerges as one of, if not the major, intelligence players involved in public discussion...

LONDON (Reuters) - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be asked to testify to a panel investigating the Iraq war, the head of the inquiry said Thursday. Former civil servant John Chilcot said the inquiry, set up by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, would look at British involvement in the war, covering the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July this year. "The people we invite to give evidence will be those we judge ... are best placed to supply the information we need to conduct our task thoroughly," the inquiry chairman told a news conference....

Saddam Hussein spent billions building dozens of vast, gaudy palaces all over Iraq, many of which are still occupied by US troops. But the Iraqi government is divided - as usual - on what to do with them once the soldiers have gone... [snip] ...‘For sale/rent: 80 presidential palaces, average unit living space half-a-million square feet. Attached gardens featuring disused swimming pools, personal zoos/nuclear bunkers etc. Rooms fitted with thrones and gold lavatories, en suite torture chamber optional. Some bomb damage. Suit megalomaniac or similar.’

Deposed Iraqi leader was armed with the pistol when Delta Force troops captured him in 2003 George Bush is not a man who does irony. It's not in his personal vocabulary. Take the exquisite irony behind the story of Saddam Hussein's gun. The weapon, a 9mm Glock 18C, was discovered by Delta Force special troops when they dug Hussein out of his fox hole outside Tikrit on 13 December 2003. The legendary beast of Baghdad emerged from the 8ft-deep hole bewildered and disorientated; with his shaggy beard and unkempt mop of hair he looked closer to a dishevelled elf than...

This is one of those articles that I really REALLY hope people will read before just commenting on the headline or the quoted sections. In fact, I think it's one of the best articles I've seen on this subject in half a decade. Yes, it's long, detailed, and forces many readers to question their previously held beliefs about regime ties to the Al Queda terrorist network, but it's not the typical anti-Bush/anti-war piece or a woohoo-Bush-was-right piece either. It is EXACTLY why: members of the 911 Commission, Sen Intel Com, as well as others (and why every investigation into the...

(Moderator note: comments for www.regimeofterror.com are now activated at the end of each post)During a series of email and telephone exchanges Matthew Degn relayed to www.regimeofterror.com his vast array of experiences working with intelligence issues relating to the current and former situation in Iraq. Among his responsibilities during his years in Iraq Degn worked as a civilian interrogator attached to the U.S. Army in Iraq before working as a Senior Policy/Intelligence Adviser to Deputy General Kamal and other top intelligence officials with the Iraq's Ministry of Interior. Degn, currently working on a book about his experiences in Iraq (personal website...

Many American presidents have kept prized possessions within reach during their White House years. Franklin D. Roosevelt cherished a 19th century ship model of the U.S.S. Constitution. One of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s favorite gifts was an engraved Steuben glass bowl from his cabinet. And sitting on John F. Kennedy’s desk in the Oval Office was a paperweight made from a coconut shell he had carved with a distress message after his PT-109 was sunk during World War II.

The most exciting and underreported news of the past few weeks in Iran has been that the emerging challenger to the increasingly frantic and isolated "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. And Rafsanjani has recently made a visit to the city of Najaf in Iraq to confer with Ayatollah Ali Husaini Sistani, a long-standing opponent of the Khamenei doctrines, as well as meeting in the city of Qum with Jawad al-Shahristani, who is Sistani's representative in Iran. It is this dialectic between Iraqi and Iranian Shiites that underlies the flabbergasting statement issued from Qum...