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LONDON (Reuters) - Britain discussed supporting the United States to bring about a change of government in Iraq eight months before the March 2003 invasion, Tony Blair said on Sunday. But the prime minister, facing an election on Thursday in which the divisive war could cost him votes, denied suggestions his government took an early decision to topple Saddam Hussein. His comments came in response to a leaked memo in a newspaper that said Blair and President Bush were determined to oust Iraq's former leader as early as July 2002. "I actually talked about regime change if it wasn't possible...

DAMASCUS, Syria — First of two parts A Syrian trading company with close ties to the ruling regime smuggled weapons and military hardware to Saddam Hussein between 2000 and 2003, helping Syria become the main channel for illicit arms transfers to Iraq despite a stringent U.N. embargo, documents recovered in Iraq show. The private company, called SES International Corp., is headed by a cousin of Syria's autocratic leader, Bashar Assad, and is controlled by other members of the president's Baath Party and Alawite clan. Syria's government assisted SES in importing at least one shipment destined for Iraq's military, the Iraqi...

U.S. Links Charity to Chechen RebelsBy Nabi Abdullaev Staff Writer The head of a U.S.-based Islamic charity who is suspected of having ties to Osama bin Laden is in jail facing a grand jury investigation after the FBI showed he had lied about his support for Chechen rebels. Federal officials accused Enaam Arnaout, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen, and his Benevolence International Foundation of perjury last month for claiming they did not provide support to "people or organizations known to engage in violence, terrorist activities or military operations of any nature." Arnaout, 39, was arrested April 30. He had been under...

Barack Obama’s pick for “regulatory czar,” Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein, may be the incoming president’s most popular appointment so far. Judging from his resume -- best-selling author, “pre-eminent legal scholar of our time,” and an endorsement from The Wall Street Journal -- we can almost understand why. Almost. Because as we’re telling the media today, there’s one troubling portion of the new Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator’s C.V. that has seems to have flown under everyone’s radar: Cass Sunstein is a radical animal rights activist. Don’t believe us? Sunstein has made no secret of his...

After the release of the Iraq Survey Group's Duelfer report, the headlines blazed "No WMD Found." ...This reflects the notion that Iraq was only a threat if it had military munitions filled with WMD. The claim "Iraq was not an imminent threat" was also expounded by pundits that seemingly crawled out of the woodwork as well as those opposed to President Bush. But have these individuals read carefully the report...? While no facilities were found producing chemical or biological agents on a large scale, many clandestine laboratories operating under the Iraqi Intelligence Services were found to be engaged in small-scale...

Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters attended a Nation of Islam convention where the hate group’s leader, Louis Farrakhan, defended Palestinian suicide bombers. The convention, which took place in California in 2002, is just the latest tie to emerge between Democrats and the Nation of Islam, a black nationalist group known for being viciously anti-Semitic.

On January 3, 2018, select DHS employees received notification letters that they may have been impacted by a privacy incident related to the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) Case Management System. The privacy incident did not stem from a cyber-attack by external actors, and the evidence indicates that affected individual’s personal information was not the primary target of the unauthorized unauthorized transfer of data. [SNIP] On May 10, 2017, as part of an ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by DHS OIG and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, DHS OIG discovered an unauthorized copy of its investigative case management system in...

Sen. Al Franken has announced he will resign his seat in the coming weeks. But this isn't the first time Minnesotans have witnessed a shift in that particular seat.  Some political experts even call it cursed. "This is a troubled seat," said David Schultz, a political expert at Hamline University. Schultz said to better understand why, you have to go back more than 40 years.   "It all started in 1976 when then-Senator Walter Mondale resigns to become Vice President of the United States," he said. "It creates a vacancy. Gov. Wendy Anderson wants to become Senator, (so) he resigns as...

In the duel between North and South Korea, the question now is who will pull the trigger first? The answer may be neither, but don't count on it. The dueling now focuses on two quite different flashpoints. The first is the West or Yellow Sea, where North Korea has vowed to open fire against any South Korean vessel intruding in its waters. One issue there is how to define which waters are North Korean. The North refuses to recognize the Northern Limit Line, set by the United Nations Command after the Korean War (1950-1953) and challenged by North Korea in...

Seoul's defence minister on Sunday vowed retaliation over the sinking of a South Korean warship which killed 46 sailors near the disputed sea border with North Korea last month. "Those responsible for killing our soldiers must pay the price," Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young told a KBS television programme aired nationwide on Sunday. "Retaliation -- in whatever form it is -- must be done." It echoed South Korean Navy chief Admiral Kim Sung-Chan's reprisal pledge during Thursday's mass funeral for the sailors, attended by President Lee Myung-Bak. South Korea has not openly blamed its communist neighbour for the blast which tore...

Hatfill's lawyers alleged that the three officials who leaked investigative details to the news media were Roscoe C. Howard Jr., who from 2001 to 2004 served as U.S. attorney for District of Columbia; Daniel S. Seikaly, who served as Howard's criminal division chief; and Edwin Cogswell, who formerly served as a spokesman for the FBI. .... U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the lawyers for the government and for Hatfill to seek "mediation" over the next two months. The prospects of a mediated settlement notwithstanding, Walton said he expected a trial could begin in December. Hatfill's lawyers, Grannis and...

Hodgkinson had a history of violence that did not rise to the level to prohibit him from legally owning a firearm. He was the foster father of at least two girls. The first, Wanda Ashley Stock, 17, committed suicide in 1996 by pouring gasoline on herself and setting herself on fire after a few months of living with the Hodgkinsons, the Belleville News-Democrat reports. The Hodgkinsons gave an interview to the paper after her suicide, calling her a “very practical, level-headed girl.”

The Justice Department has backed away from a court battle over its authority to classify and restrict the discussion of information it has already released, handing a local advocacy group a victory by granting it explicit permission to publish letters written by two senators that contain the contested information. The case was considered a potential test of limits to the government's power to restrict access to information in the public domain on national security grounds. Former attorney general John D. Ashcroft had strongly defended the practice in this case by likening it to putting "spilt milk" back in a jar...

French connection armed Saddam By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES The United States stood by for years as supposed allies helped its enemies obtain the world's most dangerous weapons, reveals Bill Gertz, defense and national security reporter for The Washington Times, in the new book "Treachery" (Crown Forum). In this excerpt, he details France's persistence in arming Saddam Hussein. First of three excerpts New intelligence revealing how long France continued to supply and arm Saddam Hussein's regime infuriated U.S. officials as the nation prepared for military action against Iraq. The intelligence reports showing French assistance to Saddam ongoing in the...

Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood is being hailed as a hero after trying to save the life of the police officer stabbed in the Westminster terror attack. Mr Ellwood, a former soldier, ran to the officer when he was stabbed just inside the gates of Parliament. He gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and stemmed the blood flow, before waiting with him until the air ambulance landed in Parliament Square. The police officer sadly died at the scene. He was later pictured with blood on his face as he spoke to emergency services. Mr Ellwood has been a Minister in the Foreign...

AMID western world celebrations of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida chieftain in Iraq, there seems little certainty about who will succeed the brutal killer. Egyptian-born, Afghanistan-trained Abu al-Masri is likely to take the helm, according to U.S. military predictions. Major-General William Caldwell said al-Masri - whose name is an obvious alias and means father of the Egyptian - was the "most logical" successor, but he offered no details on why. General Caldwell, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said al-Masri was thought to have come to Iraq in 2002 after training in Afghanistan. His mission, General Caldwell...

Newly released FBI documents say a 15-year-old boy who stole a plane and crashed it into a skyscraper might have originally targeted MacDill Air Force Base in his suicide mission. An FBI review of Charles Bishop's Internet activity showed the teen sought maps of the base and information about it. He also sent an e-mail to a classmate asking where Central Command was located on the base. Bishop died on Jan. 5, 2002, when he flew a Cessna stolen from a flight school into the Bank of America building in downtown Tampa. He left a note expressing sympathy for Osama...

AAAN has long been tied to President Obama. In 2001 and 2002, the Woods Fund of Chicago, with Obama on its board, made grants totaling $75,000 to the AAAN—about a fifth of AAAN’s overall budget. Obama served in that role alongside Bill Ayers and received $6,000 a year from 1999-2002. AAAN’s founder Rashid Khalidi and his wife Mona hosted Obama in their home on at least one occasion. Obama praised Khalidi’s insights, which had been “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases.” Khalidi returned the compliment, telling a mostly Arab audience, that Obama is...

On Tuesday, March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether gay couples have a constitutional right to marry. But major American corporations have already heard the arguments—and in their own way, decided it's OK. Beginning in 2002, a leading gay-rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, began systematically rating corporate America's commitment to gay rights. The effort was born in large part out of frustration with the political process.

BACKSTORY 11-08-2002 Dateline: PARIS American billionaire investor George Soros, on trial in a 14-year-old insider trading case, told a court Friday that he didn't have privileged information when he bought shares in French bank Societe Generale. Soros and two other businessmen are on trial at the Paris Criminal Court, accused of benefiting from insider knowledge when they bought the bank's stock in 1988 before a failed takeover that pushed up the price. "I have been in business all my life and I think I know what is insider trading and what isn't," said the president of Soros Fund Management, in...