Free Republic

DUBAI, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Muslims have decried as hypocrites Western dailies which have cited free speech as the reason for printing disrespectful cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, saying the same newspapers take pains to avoid lampooning Jews. The caricatures, first published in a Danish daily in September and then reprinted across Europe, have unleashed fury among Muslims who view any portrayal of their Prophet as blasphemous, let alone one showing him as a terrorist. What is really insulting, some Muslim clerics and politicians say, is that Europeans do not think twice about denigrating Islam but view ridicule of Judaism...

There is a growing debate in the U.S. over President George W. Bush's State of the Union speech claim that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussain recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Serious questions have been raised about the validity of the intelligence used to make that claim and whether the president was aware of CIA's concerns with the intelligence before he made the speech. This controversy, coupled with the continuing lethal attacks against U.S. military personnel in Iraq and questions about the adequacy of the Administration's post-war planning, has produced a changing political climate in...