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FAS | Nuke | Guide | Iraq | CW |||| Index | Search | Join FAS Chemical Weapons Programs Iraq started research into the production of chemical weapons agents in the 1970s and started batch production of agents in the early 1980s. At that stage, production was heavily reliant on the import of precursor chemicals from foreign suppliers. In 1982, early in the Iran-Iraq War, the Iraqis used riot control agents to repel Iranian attacks. They progressed to the use of CW agents in mid-1983 with mustard, and in March 1984 with tabun (the first use ever of a nerve...

Up to a dozen Secret Service agents in Colombia for President Barack Obama’s trip there have been relieved of their duties amid allegations of misconduct. The Secret Service did not detail the accusations but said they did not affect security for the president, who landed in the country Friday for a weekend at the Summit of the Americas. The Associated Press reported that the allegations involved prostitutes. The actions happened before the president’s arrival on Friday, the AP reported, citing unnamed sources. “There have been allegations of misconduct made against Secret Service personnel in Cartagena, Colombia prior to the President’s...

Weekly Roundup - Living On Nothing Edition Category: Roundups | Comments(15) Did you hear about the guy that lives on nothing? No seriously, he lives on zero dollars a day. Meet Daniel Suelo, who lives in a cave outside Moab, Utah. Suelo has no mortgage, no car payment, no debt of any kind. He also has no home, no car, no television, and absolutely no “creature comforts.” But he does have a lot of creatures, as in the mice and bugs that scurry about the cave floor he’s called home for the last three years. To us, Suelo probably sounds...

LOVELAND, CO — As a mother of seven, Anne Miller already had a whopping grocery bill. When doctors recommended her teenage daughter go on a gluten-free diet, the family food bill went higher than Miller could afford. So Miller was first in line this week when a food pantry in this northern Colorado city became the nation's first to promote gluten-free food for needy families with wheat allergies. "Basically the whole family has to eat gluten-free now," said Miller, who walked out of the House of Neighborly Service food bank with a grocery cart full of gluten-free soups, pastas and...

Americans finding soaring food prices hard to stomach can battle back by growing their own food. [Click image for a larger version] Dean Fosdick Dean Fosdick Home vegetable gardens appear to be booming as a result of the twin movements to eat local and pinch pennies. At the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta this winter, D. Landreth Seed Co. of New Freedom, Pa., sold three to four times more seed packets than last year, says Barb Melera, president. "This is the first time I've ever heard people say, 'I can grow this more cheaply than I can buy it in...

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.

USAID Undercuts U.S. Global HIV/AIDS Initiative   This May, President Bush signed into law the Global HIV/AIDS bill (HR 1298). Over the course of the next few years, $15 billion will be spent on new programs designed to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS, and to provide life-extending care to millions infected with the disease. The law mandates that 55% of the overall funding will go for basic medicaltreatment. Even more importantly, 33% of the overall prevention funding must go to abstinence programs. No money would go to groups that advocate the legalization of prostitution. Oversight of the U.N. Global Fund...