Free Republic

A nuclear Iran is a serious threat to the Middle East. Moreover, a nuclear bomb in the hands of the mullahs may have far-reaching repercussions, far beyond the Middle East. Iran’s deeply rooted ideological hostility towards Israel, coupled with its emerging military capabilities puts the Jewish state in a particularly vulnerable spot. Diplomacy is doomed to fail, leaving only the threat to use force and the actual use of force as viable options to delay the fruition of the Iranian nuclear program.

'Dr Germ' and 'Mrs Anthrax' released from Iraqi jail 19/12/2005 - 12:48:51 Notorious Saddam-Hussein-era officials have been released from jail in Iraq and some have already left the country, an Iraqi lawyer said today. A legal official in Baghdad said between 24 and 25 top former officials in Saddam Hussein’s government have been freed, including Rihab Taha, known as Dr Germ, and Huda Salih Ammash, known as as Mrs Anthrax. The Iraqi lawyer, Badee Izzat Aref, said some of those released were his clients. “The release was an American-Iraqi decision and in line with an Iraqi government ruling made in...

From: Laurie Mylroie sam11@erols.com Iraq News Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:04:26 -0400 Robert Kagan [link below] reminds us of the origin of the view that Iraq retained large quantities of weapons proscribed by UNSCR 687, the formal cease-fire to the 1991 Gulf War. Following that war, it was long believed that the bulk of Iraq's WMD was destroyed in the month-long bombing campaign that began the U.S.-led assault to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. It was further assumed that the UN weapons inspectors, UNSCOM, were merely mopping up what remained. But in August 1995, as Iraq was pressing UNSCOM to...

Susan Lindauer, the former Democratic congressional aide charged with spying for Iraq, was arrested several months after meeting with an FBI agent who posed as a Libyan intelligence agent looking to recruit support for Iraqi groups attacking U.S. forces in the aftermath of the war. According to the indictment charging Lindauer with conspiracy to spy for Iraq, that meeting took place on June 23, 2003, in Baltimore, Maryland. The indictment charges that Lindauer and the agent "discussed the need for plans and foreign resources to support [resistance] groups operating within Iraq." The indictment says Lindauer met with the agent again...

ASSOCIATED PRESS An Iraqi scientist has told U.S. interrogators that her team destroyed Iraq's stock of anthrax in 1991 by dumping it practically at the gates of one of Saddam's main palaces, but never told U.N. inspectors for fear of angering the dictator. Rihab Rashid Taha's decision in 2003 to remain silent stoked suspicions of those who contended Iraq still harbored biological weapons, contributing to the U.S. decision to invade Iraq two years ago this month. "Whether those involved understood the significance and disastrous consequences of their actions is unclear," the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group says of Mrs. Taha and...

Saddam's $2m offer to WMD inspector By Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 12/03/2005) Saddam Hussein's regime offered a $2 million (£1.4 million) bribe to the United Nations' chief weapons inspector to doctor his reports on the search for weapons of mass destruction

Former President Jimmy Carter was a target of the clandestine lobby campaign launched by an Iraqi-American businessman who admitted he was paid millions of dollars to undermine U.S. policy toward Iraq, it was revealed yesterday. Virginia-based oilman Samir Vincent earlier this week became the first person to plead guilty in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal. He had several contacts with the former Democratic president in a bid to weaken and eventually repeal sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime, investigators said. Contacts with Vincent dated back to 1999, when Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, hosted a delegation of Iraqi religious leaders at their...

The U.S. is engaged in a bloody war in Iraq for the purpose of eliminating the remnants of a terrorist regime, foreign terrorists, and bringing democracy to Iraq and the region. It is a big gamble that has put radical Islam on the defensive around the world. But shocking evidence demonstrates that controversial former U.S. Marine and former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who now writes for the anti-American Arab "news" organization Al Jazeera, was involved in a controversial effort to stop the war by enlisting prominent personalities in a "peace" campaign.

According to security services, a Dutch chemist is suspected to have been involved with the banned weapons program of Saddam Hussein. It is the 60 year old Frans van A. from Den Helder. This was reported by the newspaper 'De Telegraaf' on Saturday. Van A. is probebly hiding in Baghdad, heavily guarded by the Iraqi Republican Guards. He has been under surveillance by the Dutch security service AIVD for several years. According to the AIVD, it is an 'unique situation', because Van A. is one of the few foreigners that has intensive contacts to the regime of Saddam Hussein. Also...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) Prosecutors said on Tuesday they will charge a Dutch chemicals dealer as an accomplice to genocide for supplying Saddam Hussein with lethal chemicals used in the 1988 chemical attack on a Kurdish town that killed an estimated 5,000 civilians. Wim de Bruin of the national prosecutor's office said the suspect, who was arrested in Amsterdam on Monday, will face charges ''for violating the laws of war and involvement in genocide.'' Prosecutors said Frans van Anraat, a 62-year-old chemicals dealer, had been a suspect since 1989, when he was arrested in Milan, Italy, at the request of the...

A MAN suspected of helping former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein commit war crimes and genocide by supplying him with materials for chemical weapons, has been arrested by the Netherlands authorities. Prosecutors said the 62-year-old man, identified as Frans van Anraat by Dutch television, was arrested at his Amsterdam home on Monday as he prepared to leave the Netherlands. "According to the United Nations, the Dutchman is one of the most important middlemen in Iraq’s acquisition of chemical material," Dutch prosecutors said in a statement. "The man is suspected of supplying thousands of tonnes of raw materials for chemical weapons between...

As the military advances closer to Baghdad, signs of Iraqi chemical preparedness are multiplying, although there is still no conclusive evidence Saddam Hussein's regime possesses weapons of mass destruction. On Friday, troops at a training facility in the western Iraqi desert came across a bottle labeled "tabun" -- a nerve gas and chemical weapon Iraq is banned from possessing. Closer to Baghdad, troops at Iraq's largest military industrial complex found nerve agent antidotes, documents describing chemical warfare and a white powder that appeared to be used for explosives. U.N. weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex...

After the release of the Iraq Survey Group's Duelfer report, the headlines blazed "No WMD Found." ...This reflects the notion that Iraq was only a threat if it had military munitions filled with WMD. The claim "Iraq was not an imminent threat" was also expounded by pundits that seemingly crawled out of the woodwork as well as those opposed to President Bush. But have these individuals read carefully the report...? While no facilities were found producing chemical or biological agents on a large scale, many clandestine laboratories operating under the Iraqi Intelligence Services were found to be engaged in small-scale...

Many Helped Iraq Evade U.N. Sanctions On Weapons By Craig Whitlock and Glenn Frankel Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, October 8, 2004; Page A01 BERLIN, Oct. 7 -- As part of its stealth effort to evade U.N. sanctions and rebuild its military, the Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein found that it had no shortage of people around the world who were willing to help. Among them: a French arms dealer known only as "Mr. Claude," who made a surreptitious visit to Iraq four years ago to provide technical expertise and training. Mr. Claude worked for Lura, a French company...

United Nations - CIA-Iraq chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, whose report cast doubt on Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, was blocked from reaching that same conclusion in 1999-2000 by the Clinton White House. Before officially joining the CIA weapons hunt earlier this year, Duelfer spent more than 8 years hunting WMD at the United Nations, first for the noted Swede Rolf Ekeus, than the flamboyant Aussie Richard Butler. Butler, known for his repeated clashes with Iraq officials, was eventually forced out of his U.N. job by the French and Russian ambassadors in June...

(CNSNews.com) - Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by U.S. forces and obtained by CNSNews.com, show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda, to target Americans. They demonstrate that Saddam's government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both considered weapons of mass destruction, in the summer of 2000, during the period in which United Nations weapons inspectors were not present in Iraq. And the papers show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders. One of the Iraqi memos contains an order from Saddam for his intelligence service to...

UN inspector 'took £60,000 Iraq bribes' Iraqi oil officials have accused a United Nations inspector of taking almost £60,000 in bribes from Saddam Hussein's regime as his henchmen and foreign business partners siphoned millions from the UN's oil-for-food programme, it was reported yesterday. An inquiry by officials in the State Oil Marketing Organisation - a body which, under Saddam, was a key player in schemes that allegedly diverted billions in oil revenues from the UN-run programme - accused an inspector contracted through the Dutch company Saybolt of falsifying documents in return for bribes, the Wall Street Journal reported. Saybolt was...

The discovery of an Iraqi artillery shell armed with nerve gas has the liberal community and mass media in a panic. The 155mm nerve gas shell was rigged to kill U.S. troops but it failed. U.S. Brig. General Mark Kimmitt confirmed the discovery during a news conference in Baghdad. Yet, the discovery of nerve gas was followed by a second revelation. A second shell, equipped with mustard gas was found two weeks ago. The mustard gas shell identified by the special WMD inspection team in Iraq appears to be one of 550 declared by Saddam to U.N. inspectors during the...

<p>Hans Blix has pounded the final nail in the coffin of left-wing bilge that has despicably charged President Bush and his administration with lying about intelligence on WMD in Iraq. In fact, in his new book, "Disarming Iraq," Mr. Blix acknowledges that he also believed that Iraq had failed for years to comply with its post-Gulf War (1991) obligation to destroy its WMD.</p>

Alleged spy for Iraq gave Lockerbie depositionFormer Democrat congressional aide was at center of CIA controversy Posted: March 12, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Sherrie Gossett© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Former journalist and congressional press secretary Susan Lindauer, who was arrested yesterday on charges she acted as an Iraqi spy before and after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, came to the forefront of politics in 1994 over a controversial meeting she had with an alleged CIA operative based in Syria. That meeting resulted in her giving a deposition in the Lockerbie bombing trial that suggested Libya was innocent of the bombing. The 1994 deposition received...