Free Republic

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi scientist killed in the U.S. invasion and now linked by arms hunter David Kay to possible nuclear weapons research was working on an advanced gun, not atomic bombs, fellow physicists say. They and eyewitnesses also say Khalid Ibrahim Sa'id was killed not when he tried to "run a roadblock," as asserted by Kay, but when a U.S. tank crew blasted his civilian car without warning on an open street. These accounts of the physicist's research and death, provided by 10 Iraqis and supported on key points by U.N. arms inspectors, challenge a core element of...

More signs of Syria turn up in Iraq The Iraqi ambassador to Syria tells the Monitor that photos of high-ranking Syrian officials were found in Fallujah. By Nicholas Blanford | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor DAMASCUS, SYRIA - When US troops stormed the rebel-held city of Fallujah last month, they uncovered photos of senior Syrian officials that have further strained the already tense relations between Syria and Iraq, according to the Iraqi ambassador to Syria.Several captured insurgents were found in possession of the photographs, confirmation, according to Iraqi officials, that some elements in the Syrian regime - perhaps...

Iraqi University Students Learn Democracy By Kathleen T. RhemAmerican Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Sept. 23, 2004 -- Scott Erwin went to Iraq a year ago to do paperwork in preparation for a major donor's conference, but soon realized Iraq was full of opportunities to help change people's lives. The 22-year-old Erwin soon volunteered for a job that would take him outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government buildings and the U.S. Embassy. His new job with the Ministry of Interior "allowed me to go into the city every day and interact with my Iraqi colleagues," he...

BAGHDAD — During Saddam Hussein’s rule, the university that bore his name engaged in a bit of scholarly subterfuge that ranged from indirect criticism of his policies to readily exposing students to Western ideas, according to faculty members. In one instance, a couple of years ago, a lecturer working on her doctoral thesis was astonished to find in a school library a copy of the latest book written by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. She happily grabbed it off the shelf for further study. Emad A. Salem said he and other teachers would, whenever it was academically appropriate,...

BAGHDAD – After a decade of sanctions had left his physics lab a crumbling shell, Raad Mohammed decided it was time to go. In 1999, following a route trodden by thousands of the best and brightest of Iraq's academics, Dr. Mohammed escaped to Jordan without a goodbye to his lifelong colleagues. He was accompanied only by his wife, their suitcases, and handfuls of cash to bribe Mukhabarat agents at the border. He was not alone. An estimated 2,000 professors fled Iraq's 20 major universities between 1995 and 2000, according to news reports at the time. Professors say a thousand or...

BY LATE October, there seemed widespread agreement in the Western press that the United States was failing in Iraq, where I had been living for the past month and a half. Saddam Hussein, I was reminded by television reports and pieces on the Internet, was still at large; the weapons of mass destruction that had been the ostensible reason for American intervention were looking like figments of "sexed-up" intelligence reports, if not a plot by the Bush administration to deceive the American people; and, by precipitously overturning the rock of the Baathist regime, the U.S. had succeeded only in releasing...

GRADUATION DAY: Despite the US invasion of Iraq and the delay of the school year, these Baghdad University graduates are trying to move forward with their lives. SCOTT PETERSON/GETTY IMAGES from the December 09, 2003 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1209/p01s03-legn.html Iraq's students say, 'Welcome back, professor' By Christina Asquith | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor BAGHDAD - After a decade of sanctions had left his physics lab a crumbling shell, Raad Mohammed decided it was time to go. In 1999, following a route trodden by thousands of the best and brightest of Iraq's academics, Dr. Mohammed escaped to Jordan without a...

Anti-Ba'athist ruling may force educated Iraqis abroad Tarik al-Kubaisy, vice-president of the Iraqi Society of Psychiatrists, is a worried man. It's not just that the queue of patients suffering from severe stress disorders in Iraq's war-torn society is growing longer by the day. Nor that a country of 25 million has fewer than 100 psychiatrists and many are planning to emigrate now that Saddam Hussein's restrictions on foreign travel have gone. The other concern for Dr Kubaisy, who was awarded a London University PhD after four years at the Maudsley hospital, is that the Americans have taken away his job....

BAGHDAD -- Two young women strolled arm in arm toward the university bus stop, giddy with relief that final exams were over. Around them surged a stream of students as diverse as it was high-spirited: girls in modest black veils or skin-tight fashion ensembles, trim-bearded Shiite and clean-shaven Sunni Muslim youths, minority Kurds and Christians.

Embedded CNN Reporter Recounts Battle Of Baghdad University NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--A 45-minute pitched battle Wednesday between U.S. Marines and Iraqi fighters entrenched in Baghdad University ended without casualties on the U.S. side, Martin Savidge, a Cable News Network embedded with the First Marines, 7th Battalion, reported. Savidge said in a CNN interview that the Marines encountered heavy Iraqi sniper fire as they approached the university. He said that when his Marine convoy entered the southeast of the city, it was met by a large number of Iraqi civilians cheering them and flashing victory signs. The U.S. forces' initial reaction...