Free Republic

The Gaddafi regime yesterday taunted the West over its failure to impose a no–fly zone over Libya and said it would "finish the job" of defeating the insurrection against its rule by tomorrow. As Col Muammar Gaddafi's troops advanced towards Benghazi, the rebel capital, Saif al–Islam, the dictator's son, told "traitors and mercenaries" to flee the country or face the consequences. "We don't want to kill, we don't want revenge, but you, traitors, mercenaries, you have committed crimes against the Libyan people," he said, in an interview. "Leave; go in peace to Egypt." Asked about continuing British and French attempts...

FRANCE gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with American officials, documents unearthed in the wreckage of the Iraqi foreign ministry have revealed. The first Iraqi files to emerge documenting French help for the regime show that Paris shared with Baghdad the contents of private transatlantic meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington. The information, said in the files to have come partly from "friends of Iraq" at the French foreign ministry, kept Saddam abreast of every development in American planning and may have helped him to prepare for war. One report warned of an American "attempt to involve...