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CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves said on Wednesday he was sorry about the bitter departure of newsman Dan Rather, who left the broadcaster after protracted talks to renew his contract fell apart. ..media watchers said Rather appeared to have been slowly pushed off the air... "I'm sorry it ended the way it did," Moonves told executives at a PricewaterhouseCoopers media event. "There was no bigger role for him to play anymore," ...

With Katie Couric lounging in the wings, Dan Rather is now expendable, and the suits at CBS News are squeezing him out of his last remaining gig on "60 Minutes." This has caused great distress for those who like their news to look like a long commercial for MoveOn.org, which is to say, the Dan Rather fan club. CBS smiled politely as they pushed him away, but the Philadelphia Inquirer quoted an anonymous former CBS executive, who denounced the shove-off as "disgraceful. He's a legend. He gave his life to that company. Even though he made a big mistake, he...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States should set a May 15 deadline for Iraqis to form a unity government and then plan to withdraw its troops by year's end, Democratic Senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry said in commentary published in The New York Times. "If Iraqis aren't willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, they're probably not willing to build one at all. The civil war will only get worse, and we will have no choice anyway but to leave," Kerry said. Joining a growing chorus criticizing the US-led occupation of Iraq,...

George Galloway is to fly to Washington and demand to be heard in the US congress in an attempt to clear his name over allegations he took bribes from Saddam Hussein. The Glasgow Kelvin MP, expelled from Labour over his opposition to the Iraq war, was accused again on Friday of taking cash-redee mable oil vouchers from Saddam. Galloway, now heading the anti-war Respect Party, fears the flow of allegations could damage his chances in the London region of the EU elections. In an interview with the Sunday Herald he has also revealed he wants to stand for Westminster again,...

Spy recently reported confusion at the BBC over what to call Harrods boss Mohamed (al) Fayed. Now, I hear that descriptions of Saddam Hussein are the latest target of a corporation diktat. "An e-mail has been circulated telling us not to refer to Saddam as a dictator," I'm told. "Instead, we are supposed to describe him as the former leader of Iraq. "Apparently, because his presidency was endorsed in a referendum, he was technically elected. Hence the word dictator is banned. It's all rather ridiculous." The Beeb insists that the e-mail merely restates existing guidelines. "We wanted to remind journalists...

Rangel is asking "Is there any evidence that the rat in the hole coordinated resistance?" He's calling Saddam a "bum." I say that, on the face of it, there may be evidence that he did NOT coordinate the resistance, given his appearance and where/how he was found. Even THAT is important information to know. What Rangel is not saying is that if we hadn't gotten Saddam, Rangel would be running around still claiming that Saddam WAS coordinating the resistance. Now that we have him, Rangel is saying that there is no evidence that he was coordinating the resistance. I say...

<p>Well gosh golly it took only upward of 500 dead U.S. soldiers (and counting) and more than 2,500 U.S. wounded (and counting) and more than 10,000 dead innocent Iraqi citizens (and counting) and countless tens of thousands of hapless dead Iraqi soldiers (and counting).</p>

Even the good news for so many can be carved into a plateful of spin, says Miranda Devine. I am all for compassion and pity but what kind of message is the Vatican sending about mass-murdering dictators? Reuters reported yesterday the words of Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Justice and Peace department, on seeing footage of Iraq's former tyrant Saddam Hussein being examined by a US doctor. "I felt pity to see this man destroyed, [the military] looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures." Did I miss the...

The morning I heard Saddam Hussein was captured, I was awakened by a low murmur I couldn’t quite place. When I read the good news for the first time, I immediately realized what it must be - the collective of far-left anti-war protestors wailing and gnashing their teeth. Sure enough, the first thing I found when I sat down to look were leftists bemoaning the news, since they believed Hussein’s capture would improve President Bush’s re-election chances. As James Taranto at Opinion Journal noted, the angry supporters of Howard Dean were crestfallen by the capture of Saddam Hussein - one...

'WE GOT HIM!'Cardinal pities Saddam, criticizes U.S.Top Vatican official says captors treated ex-dictator like animal Posted: December 16, 200312:01 p.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com A top Vatican official says he felt pity for Saddam Hussein as he watched video of the deposed Iraqi dictator in captivity and thinks the U.S. treated him like an animal. Cardinal Renato Martino, a leading critic of the war in Iraq, said he was moved to compassion as he saw images of "this man destroyed, [the military] looking at his teeth as if he were a beast," the BBC reported. Saddam Hussein in U.S. custody A senior...

The capture of Saddam Hussein this weekend is bittersweet for thousands of Arab Americans living in the Chicago area. While most agree that Hussein was a tyrant and ruthless dictator to his people, they also know that the former Iraqi president was a friend to the Palestinian cause. He was also praised by many Palestinians for lobbing a missile at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. "It was a shock to see him like that," said Fayez Salah, a Palestinian from Jerusalem who owns the World of Gifts store in Bridgeview. "For his people he was bad, but he talked...

• Saddam was on the lam for a while (This article contains several news items) What an incredible feat our intelligence “community” has pulled off. We have captured, with this brilliant intelligence, Saddam Hussein, and it only took eight months. PAUL DENMAN Laurens • Saddam’s capture doesn’t end terror (This article contains several news items) While it is great for the Iraqi people that Saddam Hussein has finally been captured and also great politically for President Bush, it means really little to our country’s “war” on terror. His capture will prevent no future al Qaeda attacks against the United States...

CAIRO, December 15 (IslamOnline.net) – Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsy Clarke expressed readiness Sunday, December 14, to act as defense lawyer for ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, with western analysts suspecting the captured leader would be given fair trial. "Certainly, why not. I am ready to act in his defense," Clarke told IslamOnline.net shortly after the U.S. confirmed the detention of Saddam near Tikrit. Clarke, currently in Cairo to attend a two-day international anti-occupation conference, stressed that Saddam – however brutal – should be give a "fair, objective and impartial trial". "Saddam must be domestically prosecuted first and - if...

Paris – As I walked along the elegant Quai d'Orsay, past France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Talleyrand's wonderfully cynical bon mot about Napoleon's murder of the Duc d'Enghien kept coming back to me: "Worse than a crime, it was a blunder." Napoleon's foreign minister could just as well have been speaking of Iraq. France repeatedly warned the Bush administration against invading Iraq. DGSE, the French intelligence service, had highly placed agents within Saddam Hussein's regime and informed the U.S. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, posed no threat and would, if invaded, turn into a second Lebanon or West...

From his aerie in the Reading Room of the British Museum, Enoch Soames notifies us of some 'chatter' among liberal activists alarmed with the capture of Saddam. Read below of what one true believer has to say at a website called the Democratic Underground Forums "DU2" --which appears to be interested in anything but helping the cause of democracy. I note that this person's personal, Chomsky-esque motto--"If you prepare people well enough to believe a lie they will believe it as if it were true" --is a quote from a science-fiction television show called "The X-Files." How true indeed for...

<p>The phone rang about 5:30 Sunday morning. It was my friend Kim calling to let us know they'd caught Saddam Hussein. She sounded pumped, excited. Finally some good news out of Iraq.</p> <p>I wasn't convinced. I hung up, turned on the TV, and the cynicism kicked in.</p>

THE DYING CONTINUES IN IRAQ.... With seemingly everyone, inclucing Howard Dean, rushing to acclaim the capture of Saddam Hussien, it must not be forgotten that America was led there by Lies and deception by President Bush. We went to war in Iraq because of its weapons of mass destruction- whether nuclear, chemical, of biological - and reputed efforts to buy fissionable material from Niger. These rationales were promoted before the United Nations, in the State of the Union speech, and before Congreessional committees. None of these reasons has proved to be legitimate. Yet, much opf America applauds. Any celebration of...