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THE Pentagon has denied any knowledge of Osama bin Laden's "arrest" after an Iranian report that he has been held for some time. The external Pashto-language service of Iranian state radio quoted an "informed source". It suggested bin Laden had been detained "some time ago", but the news was being kept secret and was likely to be announced later in the year to boost US President George W. Bush's re-election chances. A Pentagon Central Command spokesman in Tampa, Florida, said: "I have no reports on us capturing OBL, Osama bin Laden. We don't have anything on that." The Iranian report...

(Thursday, February 12th) Communication Minister of Iran Ali Unesi rejected threats of the American President George Bush pertaining to the Islamic Republic. "We do not doubt American President's stupidity. However, we do not think that the US will invade Iran," declared Unesi. According to him, American threats are nothing but an expression of conservative and aggressive politics. "Obviously, Bush has already learned a lesson after attacking Afghanistan and Iraq. Americans failed miserably in both cases," said the Iranian Minister. He also proclaimed that "Washington does not have guts to invade Iran." "A recent celebration of the anniversary of Islamic revolution...

French photographer wins World Press Photo 13 February 2004 AMSTERDAM — French photographer Jean-Marc Bouju was named on Friday as the winner of the World Press Photo competition. The international jury of the 47th annual World Press Photo, which is run from Amsterdam in the Netherlands, chose a colour image from Bouju that shows an Iraqi man comforting his 4-year-old-son at a Prisoner of War centre near Najaf, Iraq.The picture was taken on 31 March 2003 and can be viewed at http://www.worldpressphoto.nl/index.jsp. Some 4,176 professional photographers from 124 countries participated in this year’s contest, the premier annual international competition...

Friday, January 16, 2004 Iraq's deposed leader Saddam Hussain will be tried in an Iraqi court by Iraqi judges, senior member of the Iraqi Governing Council Mohammed Bahr Al Oloum said. He criticised the US decision to designate the former Iraqi leader, captured by American forces in December, as a prisoner of war. He said the council has protested the decision. "He is not a prisoner of war. He is a war criminal," he told Gulf News on the sidelines of a lecture he gave in Bahrain Wednesday night. "The man was not captured during the war; he was caught...

REBUILDING IN THE GULF'Baghdad Bob' now expert TV commentator'We all were expecting Saddam would kill himself rather than be caught' Posted: January 13, 20045:00 p.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com The man known as "Baghdad Bob" and "Comical Ali" for his outrageous statements to the media during the Iraq war has returned to television as an expert commentator on Saddam Hussein. 'Baghdad Bob' Muhammed al-Sahhaf, Iraq's former information minister, has made several appearances on Abu Dhabi TV in the United Arab Emirates since Saddam's Dec. 13 capture, reports Britain's Sky News. "Finding Saddam wasn't surprising," said al-Sahhaf, who now lives in the UAE...

<p>January 12, 2004 -- It's the all-new Baghdad Bob - he's cleaned up his act, dyed his hair and he's back on the air. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, the Iraqi minister of disinformation who became famous for his absurd daily reports that Iraq was winning the war, has popped up on Arab television as a commentator - as these new exclusive photos show.</p>

A study of television news coverage of the war in Iraq says ABC’s World News Tonight was the most antiwar — far more than CBS, NBC or Fox. — USA Today, September 9 Antiwar? What are we to make of that word, exactly? For starters, it brings to mind a twelve-year-old study on press coverage of the Catholic Church by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, the same outfit that did the study mentioned above. The findings then: press coverage is anti-Catholic. The center, which works to maintain a neutral image, did not use exactly those words but did...

The left-wing media have been working overtime to spin news coverage of the Hussein arrest. I was not surprised to see ordinary Iraqis cheering Saddam’s capture and firing rifles into the air. What has been surprising is the negative media coverage and the shameless exploitation of the war for partisan political purposes that I’ve seen since returning from Iraq in September. It’s almost as if what we did over there never happened and doesn’t matter,” one of my staff sergeants told me. “But what we did, and what the U.S. military is still doing, does matter, as the Iraqis whom...

N ews of U.S. troops nabbing deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is still all over the Internet these days, but only this writer has managed to snap up the exclusive scoop of former Iraqi Information Minister Baghdad Bob's take on the surprise capture. Here is what everybody's favorite propaganda master had to say to me about the fall of his former boss, Saddam. Marni Soupcoff: Bob, such a long time had passed since the fall of Baghdad in April, I think a lot of people were beginning doubt that the Americans would ever capture Saddam Hussein. Were you surprised to...

The capture of Saddam Hussein is good news to virtually everyone, except those who have been looking for a quagmire in Iraq from day one. Back when the war was just getting under way last spring, a dust storm that temporarily stopped the American troops advancing toward Baghdad was loudly proclaimed as a quagmire by some media deep thinkers.With all the complaints about what has not been done yet in Iraq, we need to step back and think about the fact that less than a year has elapsed since the war began. This should be in the Guinness Book of...

Sunday December 14, 10:56 PM Sahhaf denies Saddam Hussein's capture: Kuwaiti SMS joke Kuwaitis, jubilant at the capture of arch-foe Saddam Hussein, were frantically sending each other mobile text messages of mock denials from former Iraqi information minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf. "Sahhaf has denied the capture of Saddam Hussein, saying the man who was arrested is the leader of the (Afghan) Taliban," read one message. "Urgent ... Saddam announces the arrest of members of the (Iraqi) Governing Council and the coalition troops: Sahhaf," said another. Sahhaf, who has been living in the United Arab Emirates since July when he was...

Saddam Hussein is in United States custody and is being interrogated for information regarding the Iraqi insurgency, right?Wrong.New information from former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, affectionately known to westerners as Baghdad Bob, suggests that Hussein is not in custody and, in fact, single- handedly captured the entire 600 member detatchment from the United States 4th Infantry Division."Saddam had just returned from a hajj in the desert, asking Allah for guidance," said al-Sahhaf. "When he saw the infidels approaching, he hid in the hole temporarily.At the right time, he came out of the hole and the infidels fell to...

<p>The capture of Saddam Hussein was praised by the Democratic presidential candidates yesterday, but most took the opportunity to reiterate what they see as President Bush's failed Iraqi policy or take shots at front-runner Howard Dean, who opposed the war.</p>

PALESTINIANS today accused former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein of cowardice after the long-time hero to many in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was captured without a struggle by US troops near his hometown. Saddam's support and financial aid to the tune of thousands of dollars for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers during the three-year intifada made the former Iraqi strongman a popular figure in the occupied territories. Palestinians celebrated during the 1991 Gulf War when Saddam's forces fired dozens of Scud missiles at Israel. But today many were quick to draw a contrast between Saddam's meek surrender and...

The humiliating images of Saddam Hussein's capture by US forces risk increasing Arab support for the Iraqi resistance and sharpening their appetite for revenge, analysts said on Monday. "I felt extremely humiliated," said Egyptian writer Sayyid Nassar, who interviewed Saddam three weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq on 20 March. "I felt it was not only a humiliation of Arabs but of all humanity. "By shaving his beard, a symbol of virility in Iraq and in the Arab world, the Americans committed an act that symbolizes humiliation in our region, where getting shaved by one's enemy means robbing him...

Readers are invited to send in the most strained and mealy-mouthed statements from the devastated press and anti-war politicians and activists following the capture of Saddam. First up: Saddam's paid-up British anti-war activist, George Galloway: "This will not stop the Iraqi resistance. if anything, it may set the resistance free, if you like, from the cloud of Saddam Hussein, and transform it into a purely national resistance movement without the charge that it's being controlled from behind by the deposed president." Galloway must be worried sick about what Saddam might tell the coalition. So must Chirac. - 4:23:59 PM

Saddam is talking, but he isn't cooperative. New details on his capture and his first interrogation Saddam Hussein was captured on Sunday without a fight. But since then, according to a U.S. intelligence official in Iraq, the fallen dictator has been defiant. “He’s not been very cooperative,” said the official, who read the transcript of the initial interrogation report taken during the first questioning session. After his capture, Saddam was taken to a holding cell at the Baghdad Airport. He didn’t answer any of the initial questions directly, the official said, and at times seemed less than fully coherent. The...

It didn't take long for reporters hostile to President Bush to begin spinning the news of Saddam Hussein's capture. "The one thing to remember is that, even though we've got Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden is still out there," complained Washington Post reporter Robin Wright on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And in many ways he's far more dangerous than Saddam Hussein was," she added. On the same program, Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein suggested that another 9/11 attack could revitalize Democrat hopes of defeating Bush next November. "This election, more than any other I've covered, is out of the hands...

[***snippage***] THE MEMO, obtained by NEWSWEEK, suggests that the INC last year was directly feeding intelligence reports about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and purported ties to terrorism to one of Cheney’s top foreign- policy aides. Cheney staffers later pushed INC info—including defectors’ claims about WMD and terror ties—to bolster the case that Saddam’s government posed a direct threat to America. [***snip***] a June 2002 memo written by INC lobbyist Entifadh Qunbar to a U.S. Senate committee lists John Hannah, a senior national-security aide on Cheney’s staff, as one of two “U.S. governmental recipients” for reports generated by an intelligence...

During CNN's Sunday 10pm eastern news hour (repeated at 1am) Their "Last Call" question was "Will there be a backlash against US troops after the ambush that took place today?" They invited viewers to call in and give their opinion.