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Widespread reports of chlorine gas attacks in Syria have not been prevented - or acted upon - because chlorine is not "historically" considered a chemical weapon, US President Barack Obama stated Thursday. Obama was forced to answer the chlorine question during a press conference from a summit at Camp David with leaders of the Gulf states. Syria and Iran were key issues at the conference.

DES MOINES, Iowa — This week you may notice extra emergency vehicles and public safety officers running around in tactical gear, Hazmat suits, and bomb suits. It’s a part of a statewide drill Des Moines is hosting Tuesday and Wednesday to prepare emergency personnel for dealing with weapons of mass destruction. Brian O’Keefe with the Des Moines Fire Department said emergency officials in Iowa need to be prepared for anything.

An envelope containing white powder in a Nassau post office has initially tested positive for anthrax. This is the first discovery of anthrax in the Caribbean, officials say. The letter was destined for a Bahamas address and had a local stamp, claims Police Commissioner Paul Farquharson. Investigators are naming the recipient or whether the envelope had a return address. Lab tests at a Nassau hospital indicate the presence of anthrax spores, says Chief Medical Officer Marceline Dahl-Regis. Officials are now waiting for the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to confirm it the bacterium. None of the 10 employees ...

Bob is quoting Michael Moore's Material to Alan...and before that.... He asked Bob Graham about his books thesis that Bush needs to be impeached and removed from office for miss-leading the public. Then Hannity read some quotes to Bob. Then said what is wrong with that, and then Bob goes on to say that Bush should have done a comparative between the threat of al-Qaida and the threat from Iraq. Then he went on and on and said that Bush just miss-lead the People about WMDs and the ability or the lack of there of to deliver these WMDs to...

Pakistani soldiers killed a top al-Qaida operative Saturday who was indicted in the U.S. for his alleged involvement in a plot to bomb New York's subway system, the military said in a statement. The death of Adnan Shukrijumah is the latest blow to the terror organization still reeling from the 2011 killing of leader Osama bin Laden and now largely eclipsed by the militant Islamic State group. It also marks a major achievement for the Pakistani military, which mounted a widespread military operation in the northwest this summer. The military announced Shukrijumah's death in a statement, saying that he was...

A Saudi Arabian accused of associating with several of the September 11 hijackers and who disappeared from his home in the United States a few weeks before the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, is in London working for his country’s state oil company. Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife Anoud left three cars at their luxurious home in a gated community in Sarasota, Florida — one of them new — and flew to Saudi Arabia in August 2001. The refrigerator was full of food; furniture and clothing were left behind; and the swimming pool water was still...

Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter, has blown a big hole in the case against Lewis “Scooter” Libby, convicted of lying to avoid blame for outing a CIA agent. Miller was a key witness in Libby’s trial, but in her new book she has repudiated her testimony. Libby was “railroaded in his conviction” by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, she said in an interview on Fox News yesterday. In her book, The Story: A Reporter’s Journey, she writes that Fitzgerald cajoled her into testifying in 2007 that Libby had told her Valerie Plame, the wife of a critic...

The under secretary of the Army on Wednesday apologized for the military’s treatment of American service members exposed to chemical weapons in Iraq, and he announced new steps to provide medical support to those with lingering health effects and to recognize veterans who had been denied awards. Under Secretary Brad R. Carson acknowledged that the military had not followed its own policies for caring for troops exposed to old and abandoned chemical munitions that had been scattered around Iraq, and he vowed improvement. He also said that the Army had reversed a previous decision and approved a Purple Heart medal...

Gerardo Hernandez, a spy for Communist Cuba and the man responsible for the murder of four humanitarian workers (three of whom were American citizens) over international waters, was freed from prison last year by the Obama administration, due in part to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This was revealed at a February 6, 2015, celebration of Hernandez’s release, along with two of his fellow Cuban agents (collectively known as the “Cuban 5.. At the beginning of the event, an IPS official thanked all who who took part in the 17-year campaign and singled out a number of organizations that...

A white powder found Tuesday in a Georgetown University dorm room tested positive for ricin, but the university said Wednesday that there was no immediate threat to the community. Law enforcement officials said they believed there was no connection to terrorism. In an email to the campus community Wednesday afternoon, school officials said a substance that was removed from a room in the McCarthy Hall dormitory tested positive for ricin. The white powder can cause respiratory distress, respiratory failure, and multi-organ dysfunction, according to the Centers for Disease Control. SNIP FBI spokeswoman Jacqueline Maguire said no arrests had been made...

PELINDABA, South Africa – Enough nuclear explosive to fuel a half-a-dozen bombs, each powerful enough to obliterate central Washington or most of lower Manhattan, is locked in a former silver vault at this nuclear research center near the South African capital. Technicians extracted the highly-enriched uranium from the apartheid regime’s nuclear weapons in 1990, then melted the fuel down and cast it into ingots. Over the years some of the cache has been used to make medical isotopes, but roughly 485 pounds remains, and South Africa is keeping a tight grip on it.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday lawmakers cannot modify any nuclear agreement struck between the United States and Iran despite threats by Republican senators that they can. In congressional testimony, Kerry said he responded with "utter disbelief" at an open letter signed by 47 Republican senators that threatened to undo any nuclear agreement reached between Tehran and Washington.

Israel is not a party to the just signed Geneva Agreement, which includes the United States, Russia, China, UK, France, and Germany; she may decide to bomb the Arak reactor and thereby eliminate one certain route for Iran to gain a nuclear weapon. Recall that India's 1974 nuclear test explosion used Pu-239 made in the CIRUS "research" reactor, which had been constructed in the 1950s with US-Canadian assistance. Israel has a lot of experience in destroying such reactors. In 1981 they bombed Osiris, a similar reactor under construction with French help in Iraq. In September 2007, in Operation "Mivtza Bustan"...

SNIPPET: "I rarely attend trials, but this one is special. On July 24, 2013, the main hearing in the case of German businessman Rudolf M. and Iranian-Germans Gholamali K., Kianzad K., and Hamid Kh. opened at Hamburg’s Higher Regional Court. The defendants are charged with exporting 92 German-produced specialized valves for use in Iran’s Arak plutonium reactor and arranging the shipment of 856 nuclear-usable valves from India to Iran in 2010 and 2011. The reasons why the UN Security Council has ordered Iran to halt the construction of the Arak reactor are compelling. If this nuclear plant comes online in...

German surveillance suggests chemical attack unauthorized, Assad also tells PBS's Charlie Rose that he did not gas his own people, as White House continues to press claim. Government forces in Syria may have launched the chemical weapons attack that reportedly killed more than a thousand civilians last month before receiving a go-ahead from President Bashar Assad. According to an article published on Sunday in the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, a German spy ship intercepted repeated communications from forces loyal to Assad asking for permission to use chemical weapons; however, their requests were consistently denied. This latest report comes as...

Vice President Biden’s national security adviser met with Iranian officials as far back as the summer of 2012, a new report reveals. Jake Sullivan secretly traveled to Oman in July 2012 to meet with Iranian officials, The Associated Press reported Tuesday. This would mark one of the earliest in-person meetings the U.S. held with Iran in recent years. Sullivan joined the State Department in 2009 and served under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as deputy chief of staff for policy. Although he moved to the White House in February, he continued to partake in backchannel discussions with Iran. The AP...

A few weeks ago, the US Central Command announced that an air raid had killed an ISIS chemical weapon expert in Mosul. The ISIS operative, Iraqi engineer Mahmoud al-Sabawi, used to work at Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons program before he joined al-Qaeda in Iraq after the 2003 US led invasion. The idea that ISIS terrorists have access to chemical weapons brings back images of the genocide inflicted on the Kurds by Saddam Hussein in the late 1980’s. The Halabja Massacre killed up to 5,000 and injured between 7,000 and 10,000 more. If ISIS jihadists have a stash of chemical weapons,...

In recent weeks, I have heard former Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier on Fox News twice asserting, quite offhandedly, that President George W. Bush “lied us into war in Iraq.” I found this shocking. I took a leave of absence from the bench in 2004-05 to serve as co-chairman of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction—a bipartisan body, sometimes referred to as the Robb-Silberman Commission. It was directed in 2004 to evaluate the intelligence community’s determination that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD—I am, therefore, keenly aware of both the intelligence provided to...

New York Times reports that Operation Avarice netted at least 400 Borak rockets, one of the chemical weapons Saddam Hussein produced in 1980s.****************************************************************** The CIA worked with the U.S. military to purchase Iraqi rockets containing the deadly nerve agent sarin, as part of a secret effort to keep terrorists and militant groups from acquiring old chemical weapons in Iraq, The New York Times reported Sunday. The U.S. military considers the purchase plan – Operation Avarice, which took place in 2005 and 2006 – to be a nonproliferation success, the Times said. It netted at least 400 Borak rockets, one of...

Saddam killed his top commander as Marines stormed Baghdad SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COMSunday, May 4, 2003 LONDON — Iraqi President Saddam Hussein killed his leading military commander on charges of treason as U.S. forces captured Baghdad. The London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat daily said Saddam and his younger son, Qusay, executed Gen. Seif Eddin Al Rawi on April 8. The newspaper said Al Rawi, commander of the elite Republican Guards, was accused of treason and shot in the head and back. Al Rawi was summoned by Saddam and executed on the day U.S. marines captured the Iraqi capital. The newspaper...