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BAGHDAD, Iraq - More than a decade of suspicions about Iraq (news - web sites)'s missile industry and its capabilities for delivering weapons of mass destruction could be investigated quickly now that American forces control the country. But no U.S. weapons hunters or intelligence officials have visited the heart of Iraq's missile programs — the state-owned al-Fatah (news - web sites) company in Baghdad, which designed all the rockets Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s troops fired in 1991 and again this year. Not only that, it's not even on their agenda. "We have the most sensitive documents here," said...

From leaky roofs to secret agents: how the files I found in Iraq's looted foreign ministry cast light on the paranoid world of Saddam Hussein How many Iraqi officials does it take to fix the leaky roof of a diplomat's house in London? How long does a skilled translator need to convert one of George Galloway's parliamentary speeches into Arabic? In almost 1, 000 pages of Arabic prose, each stamped with the Eagle crest of Iraq, the files found inside the foreign ministry in Baghdad cast a somewhat surreal light on the questions that turned the bureaucratic wheels of Saddam...

A CAPTURED archive of 500,000 cardboard files meticulously compiled by Saddam Hussein’s ruling Ba’ath party has revealed some of the secrets of a regime so obsessed with loyalty that an officer’s support for the execution of his brother merited promotion. The archive contains a folder for every officer who served in the Iraqi military. Each military unit had a party representative who recorded and evaluated minute details of every officer’s career and personal life. The dusty files are a far more accurate testimony of Saddam’s reign than the overblown monuments he wanted to be remembered by. They show he ruled...

The captured archives are starting to show that post-Soviet Russia hadn't stopped its old Soviet ways in Iraq. Among the initial revelations: Russia's SVR foreign-intelligence service recently spied on British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, eavesdropping on their conversations and passing the information to Saddam Hussein's regime. As recently as last fall, Russia was continuing to train the Iraqi secret police. Rooting through an office of the Mukhabarat secret police, Robert Collier of the San Francisco Chronicle discovered documents showing that the SVR trained five Iraqi officers in "phototechnical and optical means" and "acoustic-surveillance means"...

Looters, journalists, soldiers and spies are scrambling to control or make off with what remains of the archives of the toppled Iraqi government. U.S. and coalition officials are fanning out across Iraq, triaging thousands of sites where secrets of the Saddam Hussein regime might be found in file boxes and scattered wreckage. At the top of the list: Information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and support for terrorism, and the fate of an American Navy F-18 pilot and nearly 600 Kuwaitis missing since Gulf War I in 1991. The huge bureaucracy of the now-destroyed Ba'ath Party generated vast amounts...

Iraqis Discover Secret Dissident Files By NIKO PRICE .c The Associated Press BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The file drawers fill room after room, papers spilling out. Inside, recorded with chilling bureaucratic detail, are the informants' reports, court records, confessions and execution orders for thousands of Iraqi dissidents. The government files, shown Thursday to The Associated Press, could be the basis for Iraqis to begin to come to terms with their past - or could be the catalyst for a new wave of bloodletting. ``Saddam Hussein kept these files because he thought he would rule forever,'' said a dissident who was...

Secret KGB archives released in Ukraine show that there were problems with the Chernobyl nuclear plant before the 1986 explosion - the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster. The 121 documents - dating from 1971 to 1988 - include a report from 1984, which notes deficiencies in the third and fourth reactors, and also the poor quality of some equipment sent from Yugoslav companies. There are also references to an incident at the plant in 1982, in which small doses of radiation were released. The explosion on 26 April on the fourth reactor released 100 times the amount of radiation of...

The Saddam Files In the aftermath of Saddam's overthrow it can now be revealed for the first time detailed information as to the horrifically sadistic gruesome rule of the Ba'athist Regime. So cruel and sadistic was their behavior it would make the Marque De Sade recoil in ghoulish horror and revulsion. So vile and villainous was the extent in which they terrorized the local population that it makes "Mos Eisley" seem like a galactic backwater Disneyland by comparison.

Diaries could lead to Saddam's Secret BackersTHE secrets of Saddam Hussein's overseas business networks have been uncovered in the records of his eldest son, Uday, whose diary also reveals that he spied on his father. British intelligence got its hands on some of Uday's prolific collection of records before looters could make off with them. They are hopeful that the diaries will identify businessmen in Britain who helped to keep the regime in Baghdad afloat. A vain and temperamental figure, Uday insisted that every order he gave should be meticulously recorded in his office diaries, whether it be the Hollywood...

The Saddam Files At the Iraqi Intelligence Service, a man walked up with a grimy sack of documents and tapes. ‘Tell the world what happened here,’ he said By Melinda Liu, Rod Nordland and Evan Thomas NEWSWEEK April 28 issue — After 9-11, as talk of war against Iraq picked up in Washington, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) became jittery. ON OCT. 29, 2002, a memo from Directorate 14 (in charge of special operations and “wet work” like assassinations) reported that “one of our sources in the United States, with a high level of reliability, says the CIA and the...

Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle RESOURCES LATEST NEWS Video: • Tape said to be Saddam Hussein on April 9 4/18 • CenCom briefing in Qatar 4/18 Audio: • President Bush's radio address / Audio español / Text / Text español 4/19 Casualties: • U.S. troops killed during military action Photo galleries: • 4th Infantry secures base • Restoring order in Baghdad • Daily photos from AP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOT TOPIC • AMERICA AT WAR: Complete coverage -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BACKGROUND Video: • CenCom briefing in Qatar 4/17 • CenCom briefing in Qatar 4/16 Graphics: • Map of Baghdad • Weapons of mass destruction Multimedia:...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In a city where marauding mobs have carried off everything from furniture to priceless cultural artifacts, one building seems oddly untouched, at least by looters. It's Iraq's Directorate of Special Security, or secret police headquarters, the one place in Saddam Hussein's Iraq that people who spoke against him or his government tended to visit. Many people were held there during investigations and proceedings or were incarcerated there after receiving sentences for criticizing the regime. Located in a heavily fortified compound in eastern Baghdad, the directorate was battered by U.S. bombs during the war. The Marines are standing...

After 9-11, as talk of war against Iraq picked up in Washington, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) became jittery. On Oct. 29, 2002, a memo from Directorate 14 (in charge of special operations and “wet work” like assassinations) reported that “one of our sources in the United States, with a high level of reliability, says the CIA and the so-called opposition have a joint plan to bring ‘quislings’ to Iraq from the north and south to gather information and await future missions. Our informant will be one of them.” The memo suggests, disturbingly, that Saddam had a mole somewhere inside...

THE secrets of Saddam Hussein’s overseas business networks have been uncovered in the records of his eldest son, Uday, whose diary also reveals that he spied on his father. British Intelligence got its hands on some of Uday’s prolific collection of records before looters could make off with them. They are hopeful that the diaries will identify businessmen in Britain who helped to keep the regime in Baghdad afloat. A vain and temperamental figure, Uday insisted that every order he gave should be meticulously recorded in his office diaries, whether it be the Hollywood videos that he wanted to watch...

<p>Qalat Sukkar, Iraq -- This is a story of a book, the chronicle of the violence done to this city under Saddam Hussein.</p> <p>It consists of about 200 sheets of lined paper, hardbound with a childish jacket drawing of knights and dragons. It is filled with neat Arabic script, the consistent penmanship of one man. The book used to be the property of the local branch of the Baath Party before U.S. troops captured Qalat Sukkar last week.</p>

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Looters and arsonists ransacked and gutted Iraq's National Library, leaving a smoldering shell Tuesday of precious books turned to ash and a nation's intellectual legacy gone up in smoke. They also looted and burned Iraq's principal Islamic library nearby, home to priceless old Qurans; last week, thieves swept through the National Museum and stole or smashed treasures that chronicled this region's role as the "cradle of civilization." "Our national heritage is lost," an angry high school teacher, Haithem Aziz, said as he stood outside the National Library's blackened hulk. "The modern Mongols, the new Mongols did that....

BAGHDAD, 15 April 2003 — So yesterday was the burning of books. First came the looters, then came the arsonists. It was the final chapter in the sack of Baghdad. The National Library and Archives — a priceless treasure of Ottoman historical documents including the old royal archives of Iraq — were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the Islamic Library of Qur’ans at the Ministry of Religious Endowment was set ablaze. I saw the looters. One of them cursed me when I tried to reclaim a book of Islamic law from a boy who could have...

Spy agencies compete to find Saddam secrets Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow, Julian Borger in Washington, Ian Black and Richard Norton-Taylor Friday April 11, 2003The GuardianUS forces in Baghdad have secured the Iraqi interior ministry for the CIA in the hope of finding documents on the ousted regime's human rights abuses and the development of weapons of mass destruction, according to intelligence sources. The development comes amid reports that Russian agents have been scouring Baghdad, as the scramble by foreign governments to secure the prized archives of the Iraqi intelligence agencies and Saddam's regime gathers pace. Russian newspapers have cited...

MOSCOW: Saddam Hussein's secret archives could already be in Moscow despite American Central Intelligence Agency's bid to block their evacuation by firing at the Russian diplomatic convoy near Baghdad on Sunday, media reported on Wednesday. Quoting intelligence sources Nezavisimaya Gazeta on Wednesday reported that Sunday's attack by the US rangers on the Russian ambassador's convoy near Baghdad was a 'direct clash between Russian's Foreign Intelligence Service SVR and CIA. Moscow had asked the US for safe passage from Baghdad to Syria for its ambassador's convoy and a "Predator" drone was hovering over it all along the way from the embassy...

Russian intelligence agents are holding daily meetings with Iraqi officials in Baghdad, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Friday and suggested they are interested in gaining control of Iraqi secret service archives if Saddam Hussein's regime falls. The report, which said that the meetings include agents of the SVR, the foreign intelligence service, did not specify its sources. But the newspaper is believed to have well-placed contacts in military and intelligence spheres. Telephone calls to the SVR press office were not answered Friday evening. The newspaper said the archives could be highly valuable to Russia in three major areas: in protecting Russian interests...