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STOP BY A BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD (It's in the Breaking News sidebar!)
Posted on 04/12/2003 1:03:08 AM PDT by Asher
Report: Top Iraqi arms scientists have fled country
By Reuters and Haaretz Service
UNITED NATIONS - The Washington Post, citing U.S. administration sources, reported Saturday that some of Iraq’s top weapons scientists have already fled their country and have most likely already made it to Syria.
The officials believed to be in Damascus are Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash and Rihab Taha, both top scientists in Iraq's biological-weapons program. The sources said there are intelligence reports that one, or both, made it to Syria.
Mrs. Taha is a British-trained microbiologist, who led Iraq's drive to cultivate and weaponize deadly anthrax. Nicknamed "Dr. Germ," she is believed to hold vast knowledge concerning all Saddam Hussein's development of weapons of mass destruction
Mrs. Ammash has been nicknamed "Mrs. Anthrax" by Western reporters. She has been photographed at Saddam's Cabinet meetings, and at a meeting with his son, Qusai, who ran most of Iraq's military and security organizations.
The two are of great potential value to American weapons inspectors who want leads on where Saddam has hidden his weapons of mass destruction.
Iraqi UN ambassador leaves U.S. for Syria Iraq's UN ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, left the United States late Friday night for Syria because he said he did not want to represent his country under a U.S.-British occupation.
Aldouri, the first Iraqi official to concede the government of President Saddam Hussein was defeated, told Reuters he was going to Paris and then on to Damascus, Syria, to "see what they have heard of my family."
Diplomats said Aldouri, who left on an Air France flight from New York to Paris late on Friday, did not hand in his credentials and Iraq's mission to the United Nations would stay open and be run by his deputy until the situation was clarified. "I am leaving this country to see my family, to see my people," he said in a joint interview with Reuters Television and Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, broadcast on Friday.
"When this occupation ends ... I will be the first to enter my country as a free country," Aldouri said. In an early interview with Arabiya, he said "I am leaving because I don't think I can work in a country that is invading Iraq, destroying, killing and demolishing whatever it wants." Crying openly, Aldouri said, "It is a country that occupies Iraq from the north to the south, from the east to the west. I don't think this occupying country will allow me enough freedom to work at the United Nations."
Despite four years of publicly defending Saddam's government, Aldouri said he hoped his country would be on the path to democracy "without any obstructions and restrictions." "I would like to find our country free as America has promised," said Aldouri, who was a Baghdad University law professor for 30 years and a diplomat for four.
Bush tells Syria not to give refuge to Saddam loyalists U.S. President George W. Bush said on Friday that Syria must deny refuge to any loyalists of Iraq's toppled leader Saddam Hussein, as a U.S. official said Syria was understood to have closed its border with Iraq.
"Syria just needs to know we expect full cooperation and that we strongly urge them not to allow for Baath Party members or Saddam's families or generals on the run to ... find safe haven there," Bush told reporters after meeting wounded U.S. soldiers in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Maryland.
"We expect them to do everything they can to prevent people who should be held to account from escaping into their country. And if they are in their country, we expect the Syrian authorities to turn them over to the proper folks," he said.
Earlier, State Department spokeswoman Susan Pittman said Washington understood Syria had closed its border with Iraq to all but humanitarian traffic and said this would be welcome if it helped stop Iraqi officials from leaving their country.
"We continue to watch the Syrian-Iraqi border quite closely," Pittman said.
"We have made clear to the government of Syria our concern that they not allow entry into Syria of any senior Iraqi regime officials, the very figures most directly involved in the barbarity and viciousness of Saddam Hussein's regime, including development of weapons of mass destruction," she said.
The U.S. military said on Friday Iraqi leaders were trying to escape from Iraq to other countries and said it had issued to troops a list of 55 people to be captured or killed.
Oh America, as many nations have learned before you, what a high price you will pay for Britain's support unless you are very, very careful.
ALERT...WASHINGTON TIMES.com: "ARMS SCIENTIST SAID TO HAVE FLED TO SYRIA" by Rowan Scarborough (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Some of Iraq's top weapons scientists already have fled their country and are in Syria, from where they may seek political safety in France, administration sources said yesterday. The officials said among those believed to have made it to Syria are Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash and Rihab Taha, both top scientists in Iraq's biological-weapons program. The administration sources said there are intelligence reports that one, or both, made it to Damascus. Mrs. Taha is a British-trained microbiologist, who led Iraq's drive to cultivate and weaponize deadly anthrax. Nicknamed "Dr. Germ," she is believed to hold vast knowledge concerning all of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's development of weapons of mass destruction. Mrs. Ammash has been nicknamed "Mrs. Anthrax" by Western reporters. She has been photographed at Saddam's Cabinet meetings, and at a meeting with his son, Qusai, who ran most of Iraq's military and security organizations. The two women are notable not only for their expertise in weaponizing germs, but also because they both attained senior positions among the male-dominated Ba'ath Party.") (April 11, 2003) (Read More...)
WASHINGTON TIMES.com: "'IT'S JUST EVIL IN HERE'" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "ZUBAYR, Iraq -- Coalition forces have discovered an abandoned military prison here, where discarded gas masks and used atropine injectors suggest the recent presence of chemical weapons and human testing. U.N. weapons inspectors have no record of the prison, in which at least two cells appear to have been recently sealed with fresh cement and brickwork. Several chambers have neatly painted signs saying "chemical storage" and bright cartoon drawings of gas masks, gloves and boots." (April 11, 2003) (Read More...)
This is so very true. Glad someone's finally saying it. Blair is above all personally ambitious. That ambition worked in our favor this time but being very, very careful is the order of the day.
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