Free Republic

THE kumbaya crowd which pressed for East Timor's independence must shoulder much of the blame for the failure of its dysfunctional Government. But while the collective of liberation theologists and civil rights lawyers cheered Fretilin's Portugese-educated Marxist guerrilla leaders, the same candle-wavers protested against the toppling of the mass murdering Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Yet East Timor, with a population estimated at about one million, whose independence was internationally recognised on May 20, 2002, is now arguably in proportionately worse shape than Iraq, population 26 million, where the first election under its new constitution took place just last December. The...

HAYDEN, Idaho (AP) — The former headquarters of a white supremacist group is headed for the auction block because no one picked up the mortgage payments after the group's founder died in September.Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler died of a heart attack at age 86, leaving an unpaid balance of $91,486 on the home.Human-rights advocates say the looming sale is one of many signs the Aryan Nations is in decline."He was the glue of the Aryan Nations movement in the Northwest, if not the country," said FBI agent Norm Brown, supervisor of the Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force. "As...

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - Richard G. Butler, the notorious white supremacist who founded the Aryan Nations and was once dubbed the "elder statesman of American hate," has died at the age of 86, authorities said Wednesday. Butler died peacefully in his sleep, sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger told The Associated Press. The time of death was not immediately known. "Everything appears to be natural," said Wolfinger, of the Kootenai County, Idaho, sheriff's department. The Aryan Nations lost its church and 20-acre compound in northern Idaho in 2000 after a $6.3 million civil judgment led to a bankruptcy filing. He moved into...

September 20, 2003 Ex-U.N. inspector says Iraq invasion justified By MADELAINE VITALE Staff Writer, (609) 272-7218, E-Mail ATLANTIC CITY - "Terrorists cannot be ignored" was the message at the annual convention of the Utility and Transportation Contractors Association on Friday at the Tropicana Casino and Resort. Ambassador Richard Butler, former chief United Nations weapons inspector for Iraq, told a couple hundred people that as a nation, we must respond to terrorists - or as Butler refers to them, "nonstate actors." "These people don't represent anyone," Butler said. "They don't speak for a government. They have come to behave like a...

Former chief United Nations weapons inspector Richard Butler was today named Tasmania's new governor. Mr Butler, 61, will be sworn in on October 3, replacing current governor Sir Guy Green, who is retiring after eight years in the vice-regal post. Premier Jim Bacon announced Mr Butler's appointment today, saying he was regarded as one of the world's most respected commentators on international affairs. Mr Butler has been an outspoken critic of the Howard government's decision to join the United States war on Iraq, and last month accused Prime Minister John Howard of misleading parliament over the issue. However Mr Butler...

<p>Critics of the war are back in business. The Bush administration, they say, decided to go to war regardless of the facts. Having made that decision, it then amassed as much evidence to support its case as it could, to the point of intentionally exaggerating (or worse) the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime. The charge is false -- demonstrably so.</p>

SYDNEY (AFP) - Former chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler backed US claims Tuesday that Syria helped conceal Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, saying he saw evidence of it. The former Australian diplomat said he had seen intelligence when he headed the UN team in Iraq from 1997 until 1999 which seemed to indicate Syria had helped keep Iraq's weapons of mass destruction hidden. "I was shown some intelligence information, from overhead imagery and so on, that the Iraqis had moved some containers of stuff across the border into Syria," Butler told ABC Radio. "We had reason to believe...

Why UNSCOM Weapons Inspectors Had to Leave Iraq in 1998source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/stories/unscom010899.htm U.S. Says It Collected Iraq Intelligence Via UNSCOM By Thomas W. Lippman and Barton GellmanWashington Post Staff WritersFriday, January 8, 1999; Page A01 The United States for nearly three years intermittently monitored the coded radio communications of President Saddam Hussein's innermost security forces using equipment secretly installed in Iraq by U.N. weapons inspectors, according to U.S. and U.N. officials. In 1996 and 1997, the Iraqi communications were captured by off-the-shelf commercial equipment carried by inspectors from the organization known as UNSCOM, then hand-delivered to analysis centers in Britain, Israel...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former top U.N. weapons inspector told a U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday Iraq's weapons program is an active threat but the international community should give Saddam Hussein another chance to let inspectors in "before taking other measures." Former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler testified at the opening of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on whether to move forcibly to oust the Iraqi president. With the world on edge over possible U.S. action after repeated remarks by President Bush, Butler doubted Saddam would make sufficient conciliatory gestures to avoid an American attack. The former head of...