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WASHINGTON, Sept. 21, 2007 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has long believed that removing Saddam Hussein was “the right thing to do,” a top Defense Department spokesman said yesterday. In a news briefing, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell countered media reports that suggest Gates did not agree with the president’s view that it was necessary to topple Saddam’s regime. In an interview Sept. 17 with a newspaper reporter after a speech in Williamsburg, Va., the secretary was asked: “Now, do you think in retrospect, knowing what we know about (weapons of mass destruction), it was worth doing?” Morrell said...

Saddam's daughter on 'most wanted' list By Jim Muir in Baghdad (Filed: 03/07/2006) Saddam Hussein's first wife, Sajida Tulfah, and his daughter Raghd appeared yesterday alongside the new Iraqi al-Qa'eda leader on a list of 41 fugitives most wanted by the Iraqi government. The list includes high officials of Saddam's former Baathist regime as well as Islamist activists in the violent insurgency. Abu Hamza al-Muhajer Rewards are on offer, with the biggest bounty $10million (£5.4million), for Saddam's erstwhile right-hand man, Izzat Ibrahim, who has eluded capture for three years and apparently survives on the run despite numerous rumours of his...

Document ISGQ-2004-00060580 is a memo that contains a direct order form Saddam Hussein in the middle of the war asking to treat the Arab Feedayeen i.e. the non Iraqi Foreign Arab Terrorists as equal as the Iraqi soldier in salary and benefits and not just any soldier but like those in the Special Forces. These are the same Arab terrorists who stayed in Iraq after the removal of the regime and caused those horrible attacks mostly on innocent civilians. This document is a follow on another document where the Iraqi were training Foreign Arab terrorist since the year 2000 (please...

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2006 – Three years after his brigade seized control of Baghdad's international airport from Iraqi forces' control, Army Col. William Grimsley said he believes that country is taking the critical first steps toward reclaiming its past greatness. Grimsley, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Combat Brigade Team during the opening days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, said history - not current events - will tell the true story of Iraq's metamorphosis. And that story will show how Iraq ultimately emerged from almost 40 years of a regime that ignored the people's needs and undermined its potential, Grimsley,...

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2006 – Iraqis are beginning to build a "democracy from the rubble" of Saddam Hussein's regime, but enemies still hope to stop the process, President Bush said here today. Bush spoke at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. He said members of Saddam's regime, Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists "dream of turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban - a safe haven from which to plot and plan new attacks against America and our allies." The enemies of a free and democratic Iraq want to ignite a civil war, he...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2006 – U.S. involvement with Saddam Hussein's sometimes noisy, protracted trial in Baghdad "is minimal," a senior Defense Department spokesman said here today. "The court proceedings are all Iraqi-government run (and) handled," Bryan Whitman told reporters at the Pentagon, noting that the U.S. military is involved with some aspects of Saddam's detention. Saddam and seven of his former aides are being tried for crimes against humanity for allegedly being involved in the killing of about 150 people in the village of Dujail, Iraq, in July 1982. Coalition and U.S. forces deposed the then-dictator in April 2003. U.S....

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2006 – President Bush today called the trial of Saddam Hussein an important milestone for Iraq. "One of the interesting moments will come here this year when Saddam Hussein's trial is brought forth for the world to see -- to see the butcher, the person who brutalized many people or ordered the brutality of many people here at this table get his due justice under rule of law," Bush told a group of visiting Iraqi citizens who had been abused during Saddam's regime. "It's been my honor to visit with folks who know firsthand the brutality of...

US sets Saddam's scientists free Huda Ammash was educated in the US Eight former aides to Saddam Hussein - including two women accused of making biological weapons - have been released from US custody in Iraq. The freed detainees no longer pose a security threat, a US spokesman said. They include Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, nicknamed by the US "Mrs Anthrax" and Rihab Taha, also known as "Dr Germ". Reports have been circulating of a pre-election deal to free former regime figures in order to appease Iraq's Sunni Arabs, correspondents say. A US military spokesman in Baghdad said eight detainees...

The Americans moved onto the grounds of what was Saddam's Directorate of Internal Security. At its center is a prison that could comfortably hold 500. At times, it had 3,000 people jammed into it. The prison had no name and is surrounded by the high-rise quarters that once housed the torturers and their families. One corner of the prison - the area with the guard's offices - was hit by a precision-guided bomb. Now the area is the headquarters of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division. The Marne Division soldiers use cells as storage areas and...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2005 – In what's being regarded as a highly symbolic development in Iraq, coalition forces will turn over former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's palace in Tikrit to the new Iraqi government during Nov. 22 ceremonies. The sprawling palace complex in Saddam's hometown, 90 miles north of Baghdad, is the largest and most elaborate of his presidential sites, a senior military official in Iraq said today on background. The U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division initially secured the complex in 2003, dubbing it Camp Iron Horse. The camp served as the division's headquarters when its members captured Saddam in...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2005 – In the summer of 1982, Mustafa Hassan Ali al-Doujaily watched the Iraqi army enter his hometown. Soldiers flattened date palm and fruit orchards and surrounded the town for months, beating and intimidating the populace into submission with systematic harassment, kidnappings and killings. Doujaily spoke with American Forces Press Service by telephone from his home in Iraq. More than 140 Shiite men and boys were killed, and several hundred more were captured -- including women and infants -- many of whom remain missing more than 20 years later. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein brought his wrath down...

If Ritter had been successful, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could still be in power threatening his neighbors and the U.S. and rebuilding his capability for producing weapons of mass destruction with money stolen from the corrupt U.N. oil-for-food program. The Plan Unfolds The evidence shows some interest in the Ritter plan by former President Jimmy Carter and former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev—and support by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But were the media secretly supporting the ploy? Ritter says famed investigative journalist Seymour Hersh kept it confidential. Another key question: Was the leak of an Internet sex sting involving Ritter an...

The Arab world is all one big happy family again. OK, dysfunctional, but happy. No, well, unhappy and as twisted as usual. While visiting Kuwait today, Palestinian presidential front-runner, Mahmoud Abbas, apologized for his people’s support of Saddam’s invasion of the Gulf emirate in 1990. Isn’t that special? (remember Dana Carvey as the “Church Lady” on SNL?). This happened just after Kuwait’s sultans (or whatever they’re called) forgave the Palestinian people for supporting Saddam’s invasion. Kuwait’s leadership went so far as to say they didn’t even expect a public apology for Palestinian support of the 1990 war. Now, isn’t that...

70 killed during capture of 'Saddam's aide' September 05 2004 at 04:02PM By Waleed Ibrahim and Tom Perry Baghdad - Iraqi and US forces arrested a man believed to be the most-wanted Saddam Hussein aide still on the run in a bloody raid on Sunday in which 70 of his supporters were killed and 80 captured, the government said. The defence ministry said Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri - who was sixth on the US list of the 55 most-wanted members of Saddam's regime and had a $10-million price on his head - was captured in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown and powerbase north...

May 30) -- When Saddam Hussein was rousted from his spider hole in Dawr, a town near Tikrit, by U.S. soldiers last December, Iraq's fallen dictator was clutching a pistol. He is now in detention at an undisclosed location, being questioned by American authorities and awaiting charges for war atrocities and crimes against humanity. But what ever happened to the pistol? The sidearm has made its way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sources say that the military had the pistol mounted after the soldiers seized it from Saddam and that it was then presented to the president privately by some of...

<p>HINESVILLE, Ga. -- He took the money. Sgt. Matt Novak admits that much. He and several fellow soldiers could not resist after discovering nearly $200 million in $100 bills sealed inside a gardener's cottage in a Baghdad palace complex last spring.</p>

Saddam's man takes over in Fallujah By Toby Harnden in Baghdad (Filed: 01/05/2004) A former senior general in Saddam Hussein's army made a triumphant entry into the besieged city of Fallujah yesterday and was greeted by flag-waving locals celebrating the departure of US marines. Maj Gen Jassem Mohammed Saleh, who headed Saddam's infantry forces, is to take over as head of what American officials are calling the "1st battalion of the proposed Fallujah Brigade". Maj Gen Jassem Mahmood Saleh arriving in Fallujah This is a new force to police the Sunni stronghold. His appearance came as two marines were killed...

Saddam's bolt-hole has to go, say Americans By Jack Fairweather in Baghdad (Filed: 26/01/2004) Iraqis have reacted with a mixture of bemusement and annoyance to plans by the US military to fill in the spider hole where Saddam Hussein was captured. The spot marking Saddam's humiliating seizure has been guarded round the clock by American troops since the former dictator surrendered without a fight in December. It was the second time he had hidden at the farmhouse in the village of ad Dawr, on the outskirts of Tikrit - the first was in 1959 after a botched assassination attempt on...

Inside Saddam's lair, the detritus of a fugitive's life Rory McCarthy in Ad Dawr, where Saddam existed in squalor not far from his former palace Tuesday December 16, 2003 The Guardian (UK) There is a rickety wooden ladder leading to the corrugated iron roof on top of the brick hut and if he had climbed up, leant against the date palm and peered out on a clear day, Saddam Hussein might just have been able to make out his opulent Tikrit palace further upstream on the far bank of the Tigris. Perhaps he took that image with him and with...

Saddam's young grandkids break down in tears December 14 2003 at 07:03PM Amman - Grandchildren of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who sought haven in Jordan with their mothers in July, broke down in tears when they were told Sunday of his capture, parents of their schoolmates told AFP. Raghad and Rana Saddam Hussein and their nine children were granted refuge in Jordan, where they live in a former palace of King Abdullah II's late father, King Hussein, on a hill in eastern Amman. Their children attend two exclusive private schools in Jordan, where the families have kept a low...