Free Republic

HER dusty file was one of hundreds of thousands of documents stacked in a house in a wealthy neighbourhood of Baghdad. Asma Rasheed married a pilot, lived comfortably in the presidential compound of Saddam Hussein and directed a microbiology programme that was not supposed to exist. Rasheed’s light blue folder has emerged from a huge archive seized by forces loyal to Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, which opposed Saddam. The archive — a dark who’s who of Iraq — reveals the tiniest details of blandishments and humiliations by a paranoid regime that shared the Nazis’ obsession...

Iraq's surprises may not be over for the Bush administration, which is learning that history is inevitable only in retrospect. The biggest immediate risk in the wake of the stunning U.S. battlefield victory lies in underestimating once again the determination and venomous nature of Saddam Hussein's Baathist Party apparatus, which struggles to regroup in the ruins of Baghdad and other cities. The American military was surprised on two fronts in the war. First it did not expect Baathist death squads to show up and fight to extinction in Basra and other points along the invasion route. The second surprise came...

A SECRET graveyard containing the remains of nearly 1000 political opponents of Saddam Hussein was reported discovered yesterday. The al Qarah cemetery, about 18 miles from the centre of Baghdad, had unnamed graves containing political prisoners, the cemetery's manager and a gravedigger told a news agency. Mohymeed Aswad, the manager, said the bodies arrived more than a dozen at a time, all political prisoners from the Abu Ghraib prison a mile away. Relatives of those who disappeared under Saddam's regime have already started arriving at the cemetery, searching for their lost ones. According to French news agency, AFP, the "secret"...

Iraqi exiles control southern town -U.S. source NASSIRIYA, Iraq, April 12 (Reuters) - Around 300 fighters, originally Iraqi exiles recruited and trained by the United States, are in control of the southern Iraqi town of Shatra, a U.S. military source said on Saturday. A Reuters photographer saw a convoy of trucks carrying Free Iraqi Forces (FIF) pass through the town of Nassiriya, 375 km (235 miles) southeast of Baghdad, armed with AK-47 rifles and wearing camouflage fatigues bearing FIF initials on their arms. The trucks, bound for Shatra some 50 km (35 miles) north of Nassiriya, were escorted by U.S....

Liberating Iraq From the April 14, 2003 issue: An emotional homecoming for the Free Iraqi Forces. by Stephen F. Hayes 04/14/2003, Volume 008, Issue 30 Umm Qasr, Iraq THE WHEELS of the four Humvees in our convoy had not stopped turning when Ali al-Ethari jumped out of the back of the second vehicle and sprinted toward the front of the Port Authority building here in Umm Qasr, Iraq. The 15 others in the convoy--11 American soldiers, two Iraqi Americans, and two reporters--knew where he was headed. Tributes to Saddam Hussein appear everywhere in this southern port town. A smiling, avuncular...

Iraqi Exile's Homecoming Celebrated By BURT HERMAN .c The Associated Press QAL'AT SUKKAR, Iraq (AP) - Blaring warnings from Humvee-mounted loudspeakers, the U.S. Marines sent residents of this rural town scurrying Monday when the troops arrived to demolish symbols of President Saddam Hussein's regime. But any potential tension melted quickly into jubilation when the people of Qal'at Sukkar learned one of their own had come home. Khuder Al-Emeri, 43, left his Seattle restaurant behind three months ago to join the Free Iraqi Forces, a group of exiles trained by the U.S. military to serve as interpreters and guides in Iraq....

Umm Qasr, IraqTHE WHEELS of the four Humvees in our convoy had not stopped turning when Ali al-Ethari jumped out of the back of the second vehicle and sprinted toward the front of the Port Authority building here in Umm Qasr, Iraq. The 15 others in the convoy--11 American soldiers, two Iraqi Americans, and two reporters--knew where he was headed. Tributes to Saddam Hussein appear everywhere in this southern port town. A smiling, avuncular Saddam hovers over a corner market on a plastic plug-in sign, like the ones that advertise cheap beer in bars throughout America. A few feet later,...