Free Republic

GAZA, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Two American hostages freed on Friday by the armed wing of Hamas were identified as Chicago-area residents Judith Tai Raanan and her daughter Natalie Shoshana Raanan, who Israel said were en route to a military base in central Israel to be reunited with family. …….. Hamas has said it took about 200 hostages during a deadly Oct. 7 rampage carried out from the Gaza Strip on communities and military bases in southern Israel, part of the bloodiest attack on the country since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. The Iranian-backed militia has said 50 more captives are...

On May 13, 2004, Senator Edward Kennedy berated Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz at the Senate Armed Services Committee, condemning "disaster after disaster" in U.S. Iraq policy. Well before the Abu Ghraib revelations, Kennedy has sought to transform Iraqi freedom from a philosophical and strategic issue into a partisan debate, without regard either to reality or result. On April 6, Kennedy called Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam." On March 5, 2004, Senator Edward Kennedy, speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations, took the president to task for allegedly exaggerating the threat posed by Iraq: "The evidence so far leads to...