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The strategic reason for crushing Saddam was to reverse the tide of global terror that incubated in the Middle East. Is our pre-emptive policy working? Was the message sent by ousting the Baathists as well as the Taliban worth the cost? Set aside the tens of thousands of lives saved each year by ending Saddam's sustained murder of Iraqi Shia and Kurds, which is of little concern to human rights inactivists. Consider only self-defense: the practical impact of U.S. action on the spread of dangerous weaponry in anti-democratic hands. 1. In Libya, Col. Gadhafi took one look at our army...

Libya's leader Colonel Gaddafi has said his country sought to develop weapons of mass destruction capabilities but will dismantle this programme completely, Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced. "This decision is an historic one and a courageous one and I applaud it," Mr Blair said. Colonel Gaddafi had told him the process of dismantling the programme would be "transparent and verifiable", the prime minister said in a statement from Durham Cathedral. The range of all Libya's missiles would be restricted to "no more then 300km, he added. Mr Blair said Britain had been engaged in talks with Libya for nine...

How Germany lost the Iraq war and its friendship with the USBy Michael MertesTuesday, May 06, 2003,Page 9 Wars always have winners and losers. Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein -- dead or on the run -- is, of course, the Iraq war's biggest loser. But Germany has also lost much, including the many US troops who will now reportedly be re-deployed to bases in other countries. Despite the announcement of plans to create a European army along with France, Belgium and Luxembourg, Germany is less relevant in both European and world politics than it was before the Iraq war. Repairing...

The 600-member Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4, based at Naval Base Ventura County, received its orders in January to deploy to the Persian Gulf for the anticipated war with Iraq. With the Seabees every step of the way will be Ventura County Star staff writer Dani Dodge, a veteran reporter whose latest assignment has been covering law enforcement in eastern Ventura County. To get ready for this assignment, she has been writing about the Seabees for the past month -- in addition to preparing herself with everything from shots to camouflage outfits. Her stories about the men and women...

Editor's note: Ventura County Star reporter Dani Dodge returned last week after two months in Iraq and Kuwait with Seabees from Port Hueneme. This is her story. Second of two parts Task Force Mike entered Iraq the day after the war started. It took 24 hours to reach camp. During the drive, I stared into the darkness waiting for an Iraqi army to materialize. The Battalion 4 Seabees around me in the back of the Humvee, even the one with the M-16, were asleep. The driver shouted back that we were in the demilitarized zone, but the only difference I...

First, let me explain: I don't camp, and when I did, flush toilets were always within an easy midnight walk. I subscribe to Bon Appetit and Cook's Illustrated and would never open a can of Chef Boyardee. I don't go outside without a shower and makeup. I have no military experience. Yet, I spent the last two months in the Middle East with the Seabees of Port Hueneme-based Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4; most of the time in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. We were in Baghdad before the city fell. Bullets flew over our heads. A land mine blew...

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been visting Iraq this Wednesday. Following a stop in the southern city of Basra, Rumsfeld moved onto the capital, Baghdad. He met with the U.S. appointed administrator for Iraq, Jay Garner. Later, he spoke to U.S. soldiers at Baghdad's airport. Asked about rumours that Washington was planning to pull troops out of Germany, Rumsfeld indicated that the rumours were true, but that the details had not yet been worked out. Those comments came one day after Rumsfeld announced that U.S. troops were pulling out of Saudi Arabia.

PARIS, 25 Apr. (IPS) As President George W. Bush has also warned the Islamic republic to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs, an influential French daily says Iranian officials are worried by the "obvious pro-Americanism sentiments" of " the Iranian people". Iranian officials are worried. Worried of the American presence next to their doors, on the East as well as to the West, worried of the invasion of Iraq "with so little popular resistance", worried of the fast fall of the Baghdad regime, worried of the sidelining of the UN, worried of the total disillusion of the Iranian people that, since...

Well surprise, surprise. Documents found in the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service, show that Saddam Hussein's people were talking to Osama bin Laden's people, according to a story in the Toronto Star. Actually, make that "STAR FINDS DOCUMENTS LINKING BIN LADEN, IRAQ" -- at the Toronto Star, the Toronto Star is always the story. The minor detail that a reporter for the Daily Telegraph was also present when the documents were found, or that the crucial reference to bin Laden was spotted by their interpreter, played rather below the fold. Still, it is fortuitous that the Star,...

Not that it should come as a surprise to anyone, but it turns out some of the staunchest international opponents of invading Iraq -- on principle, you understand -- were up to their eyeballs in secret deals with the now deposed regime of Saddam Hussein. Since the fall of Baghdad earlier this month, documents found at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, at the headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service, Mukhabarat, and elsewhere around the capital have revealed just how deeply involved were those who sided against the war at the United Nations -- France, Germany, Russia, China and the UN itself...

Mocking la perfide Albion has been a national pastime in France for centuries, but the documents that are now being disinterred from the smouldering embers of Saddam Hussein's regime suggest that perfidy would be rather a polite word for the conduct of Jacques Chirac and the French government towards their allies. Elsewhere in today's Telegraph, Alex Spillius reports that papers found in the Iraqi foreign ministry show how, as recently as three years ago, French diplomats from the Quai d'Orsay were colluding with agents from IRIS (the Iraqi Intelligence Service, better known as the Mukhabarat) to frustrate efforts by the...

PARIS - European integrationists have a cherished dream: that one day the European Union will stride the world stage speaking with a political voice every bit as powerful as its economic might. This EU would no longer be cowed by the United States. It would look Washington squarely in the eye. And the new power would be no brash, selfish American adolescent. No: it would be wise old Europe, enriched by its cultures and the lessons of its own dark history. It would tackle world crises with sensitivity, generosity and an eye to the long term. Now for the reality...

FRANCE may find itself shut out of US diplomatic business as a punishment for trying to derail the war in Iraq, despite offering a post-invasion olive branch this week, US officials said yesterday. Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, and Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, are eager to make France pay, but have yet to settle a row with the State Department about whether to do so, officials told The Times. Although there is no suggestion of trade sanctions or other severe moves, one idea is to expand the “quad” — the informal forum grouping Britain, France, Germany and the United States,...

Fear of the U.S. Is the Beginning of Wisdom Exclusive commentary by Patrick Rooney Apr 21, 2003 Today and henceforth, I shall fill the peoples under all heaven with fear and terror of you. --Deuteronomy 2:25 Our current tour stop in the War on Terrorism is Iraq. And while we’re there, we’re letting Syria know we’re in the neighborhood, and wouldn’t be too inconvenienced to, ahem, “stop on by”, depending on their hospitality or the lack thereof. We’re speaking loudly too, to Iran and North Korea. Believe me, we now have the attention of every terrorist and terrorist sympathizer in...

Remember how a war with Iraq would only divert us from dealing with the real danger -- North Korea's nuclear madness -- and make Kim Jong-Il even harder to deal with? Remember how a war in Iraq would only divert us from our real challenge, the war against terrorism? Remember how taking on Saddam Hussein would turn the world against us and cost us the support of old friends like France? Well, well, well. It turns out that North Korea would like to talk with Washington after all, and in the setting Washington has insisted on all along: not one-on-one...

At this writing, we do not know the result of what seems to be a power struggle between Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, his long-time partner and reluctantly-appointed prime minister. It is worth recalling, however, that what is good and important about this moment is the direct result of policies that were ridiculed and lambasted just a short time ago. First to the good and important. Assuming that the struggle between Arafat and Abbas, who is more widely known as Abu Mazen, is a real one, it is over whether to end the current Palestinian terrorist offensive against Israel. Despite...

This week the Kremlin has started experiencing some serious and most unwelcome consequences of being the "informal" leader of the anti-Iraq war coalition and having convened a "summit of losers" (Russia, France and Germany) in St Petersburg on April 11-12. First, Washington quite clearly hinted that it might no longer consider Russia as a member of the so-called G8 club; then Russia found itself tossed overboard from the now trilateral negotiations on the North Korea nuclear issue to be launched in Beijing on April 23. The latter, as well-informed sources in Moscow report, was considered by the Russian ruling elite...

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said on Saturday he deeply regretted "exaggerated remarks" critical of U.S. moves against Iraq (news - web sites) that soured his relations with President Bush (news - web sites). In a further attempt to repair U.S.-German relations strained by his outspoken criticism, Schroeder said he was confident the dispute over Iraq would not cause long-term problems between the two countries. "I deeply regret there were exaggerated comments -- also from cabinet members of my previous government," Schroeder told Der Spiegel magazine when asked if there were "grounds for self-criticism" for damage he caused...

SYRIA is beginning to wobble; its old regime could soon fall. Behind its resolute rejection of Washington’s accusations, its Baathist regime is weakening. It may be the first Middle East domino to topple after the end of war in Iraq. The man whose finger is on the Damascus domino is not Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. Defense Secretary. The victor will be Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, who is now standing his strongest chance of toppling the old guard who have blocked his reforms. This is the domino theory, an integral part of the multi-layered logic for war with Iraq. No...

AMERICAN military planners have been told to draw up options for possible retaliatory action against Hezbollah and other Middle Eastern terrorist groups in the event of suicide attacks on US forces in Iraq, according to official sources in Washington. Intelligence specialists have concluded that the greatest threat to US military bases in Iraq may come from groups operating out of Syria. Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, is expected to warn Damascus that Washington will no longer tolerate the use of Syrian-controlled territory as a “safe haven” for terror groups. US officials said last week they had already acquired...

Eating humble pie is not something that comes easily to Jacques Chirac. Accustomed to the flunkies and gilt splendour of the Elysee Palace and his ego nicely inflated by last year's election victories, the word humility has not been in the French President's lexicon for some time. So, faced with France's biggest diplomatic setback in decades, Chirac is groping for discretion and dignity as he beats a retreat over his Iraqi policy. He hopes some soothing words, a few concessions and a swing of fortune's pendulum will ease his international isolation and ward off US reprisals against his country. Chirac...

<p>PARIS - THE WAR NOW is past tense, the dead gone, the wounded paying the price for all the cheers and relief.</p> <p>The controversy resumes in the present and future tenses, over Washington's planned (or, as it seems, largely unplanned) pacification and reconstruction of Iraq as an economic and political society and over what may follow in the eastern Mediterranean.</p>

In 2002, well before the war in Iraq focused attention on Syria’s terrorist connections, Saddam sympathies, and military aid to the enemy, elements in the U.S. Congress were ready to unload sanctions on the Arab country. Now that stalled effort is back on track with new momentum spawned by a White House that is calling the Hezbollah- harboring country a “rogue nation.” Last year, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., introduced the Syria Accountability Act -- only to see it languish as the Bush administration reportedly worked behind the scenes to quash it as a distraction from Iraq and as inappropriate considering...

On the evening of April 9, the imam of an Amman mosque did not follow evening prayers with a special entreaty asking God to grant the Iraqi people victory against the Anglo-American invaders. The roar of the imams in Amman’s mosques fell silent. For three weeks, they had all been beseeching God, almost simultaneously. But by noon on April 9, as indications that Baghdad had fallen strengthened, Amman sank into dumbfounded disappointment. Like most other Arabs, Jordanians ­ irrespective of their position on Saddam Hussein ­ had wagered on a long Iraqi resistance that would exhaust the American and British...

This past Saturday at our regular meeting of the Arkansas FReepers, we were blessed with the opportunity to meet Jasmine, a young Kuwaiti woman and one time student of the University of Arkansas (I think...correct me if I'm wrong on that y'all). Travelgirl has been a foster mother to her and at Christmastime, much to the consternation and concern of her family and other FReepers, she flew to Kuwait to be present at Jasmine's wedding. At the meeting, we all listened attentively as Jasmine told her very moving story, driving home for us once again how blessed we are to...

<p>PARIS -An American backlash against French products and businesses has started to bite, dashing hopes here that appeals in the United States to punish France economically for opposing the war in Iraq would go unheeded.</p> <p>American importers of French wine are reporting sharp drops in sales in the past two months.</p>

Australia hits out at French and Germans over Iraq Australia has accused France and Germany of damaging the UN Security Council and splitting the European Union by refusing to back tough action against Iraq. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the rift between countries like France and Germany which opposed military action and others like Spain and Italy which supported it, had undermined EU unity and damaged its relations with the United States. "Several EU countries seemed prepared to abandon long-standing security partnerships with the US, doing great collateral damage to the Security Council in the process," Mr Downer said in...

Islamic militant Abdullah Azzam boasted to a crowd of American Muslims in 1988, "After [the defeat of the USSR in] Afghanistan, nothing is impossible for us anymore. There are no superpowers ... what matters is the willpower that springs from our religious belief." El Sayyid Nosair, the man charged with killing Rabbi Meir Kahane, wrote, "We have to thoroughly demoralize the enemies of God by means of destroying and blowing up the towers that constitute the pillars of their civilization, such as the high buildings of which they are so proud." This is the thinking behind the creation of the...

The rift in Europe over Iraq reopened last night after America's friends began to assemble a stabilisation force to back coalition troops, but left out France. Asked about the plan at the European Union summit in Athens, Jacques Chirac, the French president, expressed surprise. "I do not know anything about this proposal," he said, adding that he did not think such a force would be "an essential part of the solution of the problem" in Iraq. He was speaking a day after he had a 20-minute conversation with President George W Bush to try to repair relations with Washington. Denmark's...

A clear-the-air telephone call between President Jacques Chirac and President George W Bush this week was secured only by repeated pleading from French diplomats, it emerged yesterday. The 20-minute call on Tuesday was the first time they had spoken for more than two months. When asked if the talk had been "positive", Ari Fleischer, Mr Bush's spokesman, said: "From the President's point of view, he would call it a business-like conversation." M Chirac's spokesman said he had been "pragmatic" about post-war Iraq. Before the call could be arranged, Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador to Washington, had to lobby Karl Rove,...

PARIS, April 16 (AFP) - French President Jacques Chirac and US President George W. Bush -- bitterly divided over the war in Iraq -- have broken the ice with a brief telephone call but mending their strained ties will take time, analysts said Wednesday. "The differences have not changed, of course, but they did well to try to avoid a widening of the gap," said Simon Serfaty, director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Chirac wants to make sure that he is not left behind" when the postwar reconstruction of Iraq begins,...

From the moment that statue came reluctantly toppling down in Baghdad last week, the likes of me, who have always believed that this war in Iraq was both morally and practically right, have been told by those who opposed it to stop crowing. This is odd only in so far as I can't hear much crowing: rather the opposite. In the Commons, Tony Blair struck a note of downbeat calm and earnest intent, not Churchillian triumph, in his victory address. Even the Americans sound pretty restrained about the result and they are hardly a society given to understatement. Here is...

<p>WASHINGTON — One day after the capture of Abu Abbas, American officials began weighing Wednesday several options for handling the terrorist mastermind nabbed in Iraq.</p> <p>The three scenarios being discussed include holding him at a military base, transferring him to another country and bringing him to the United States for possible prosecution.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush had what the White House described as a "businesslike" phone conversation Tuesday with French President Jacques Chirac, the first time the two leaders have spoken since the beginning of war with Iraq, which France adamantly opposed.</p>

<p>April 15, 2003 -- Major combat in Iraq may have ended, but it might be a bit too soon to start bringing home the aircraft carriers.</p> <p>Why's that?</p> <p>In a word: Syria.</p> <p>To be sure, the Bush administration has gone to great pains to make clear that it does not envision military action against Damascus - that the solution, for now at least, lies in possible diplomatic or economic measures.</p>

<p>April 15, 2003 -- THE question on everybody's lips yesterday was: Is Syria next?</p> <p>The answer: Syria is indeed next: It will be the next Arab country to change radically.</p> <p>That doesn't mean American forces will march on Damascus, or that U.S. smart bombs will rain down on Syrian military positions near the Golan Heights - that is, unless Syria acts in ways that seriously endanger or cost the lives of coalition forces in Iraq.</p>

PARIS (Reuters) - France has threatened to deport any Muslim leaders preaching extremist views, after fundamentalist Muslims won a strong voice in a new council to represent Islam in France. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said on Tuesday the council, which will represent the country's five million Muslims, would not be allowed to become a breeding ground for radical Islam. "Islamic law will not apply anywhere because it is not the law of the French republic. Any Imams whose views run contrary to the values of the republic will be deported," Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio. "(The council gives us) more...