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Iraq's vice president has asked President Bush for a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq, the Iraqi president's office said. Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, made the request during his meeting with Bush on Tuesday, when the U.S. president made a surprise visit to Iraq. "I supported him in this," President Jalal Talabani said in a statement released Wednesday. Al-Hashimi's representatives could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday. Bush made it clear during his visit that the U.S. military presence — now at about 132,000 troops — would continue, though he stressed the fate of...

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal judge said he is troubled by government delays in deciding whether a Muslim scholar can enter the United States and may order authorities to make a decision. A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union accuses the government of manipulating the Patriot Act to try to silence Tariq Ramadan, who has been invited to speak in the United States later this month and twice later this year. U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty said the State Department seemed to be taking a long time to act on a request by Ramadan last August...

Islamic scholar is denied visa and no one tells him why Over the last four years, I have visited the United States more than 20 times. I have lectured on philosophy and Islam at numerous academic institutions from Dartmouth to Stanford and at organizations from the Brookings Institute to the United States Institute of Peace. I was invited to a meeting organized by former President Clinton, and I spoke before officials of the CIA. So when I was offered a professorship at the University of Notre Dame, I did not see it as anything particularly controversial, and I accepted the...

While the master of double talk just died, others are using the same strategy to advance their somber cause. I am of course talking of Palestinian Authority Chairman Arafat who used and abused double talk. While he pretended in English that he had turned the page on his terrorist past to become a respectable statesman, his rhetoric in Arabic never moved an iota. By not having paid attention to his speeches in Arabic, the whole world fell into Arafat’s trap, except some outstanding visionaries such as Norman Podhoretz who had his eyes and ears wide open. The new students of...

Editor's note: Readers may also be interested in Moderate Islam or Fata Morgana? and freemuslims.org Speaks Out.There is good news to report: The idea that "militant Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution" is finding greater acceptance over time. But there is also bad news, namely growing confusion over who really is a moderate Muslim. This means that the ideological side of the war on terror is making some, but only limited, progress.The good news: Anti-Islamist Muslims have found their voice since September 11. Their numbers include distinguished academics such as Azar Nafisi (Johns Hopkins), Ahmed al-Rahim (formerly...

The three ambassadors who died violent deaths were Cleo Noel Jr.,killed in March 1973 when Palestinian terrorists struck an embassy in Sudan; Adolph Dubs, killed in 1973 when Afghan police stormed a hotel room where he was being held by terrorists; and Arnold Raphel, who died in 1988 when a plane crashed. Receiving waivers as longtime diplomats with military service were William Rivkin and Philip Crowe. Rivkin, who died in 1967, served as ambassador to Senegal, Gambia and Luxembourg and spent five years of in the Army during World War II, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Crowe, who...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz has started calling his youngest son - named Saddam after Iraq's ousted leader - by the name Zuhair instead, according to letters obtained by the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat. "My regards to everybody, how is your mother? And your youngest brother Zuhair?" Aziz said in a July letter to his two daughters, Zeinab and Maysaa. He also referred to the son as Zuhair in an October letter, the paper said in its Wednesday editions, which reproduced several of Aziz's letters. The widely read Arabic daily said it got the...

Tariq Aziz asks 'Devil's Advocate' for help at trial By Colin Freeman in Baghdad and Kim Willsher (Filed: 14/12/2003) The family of Tariq Aziz has approached a celebrated French defence lawyer nicknamed the Devil's Advocate to defend the former Iraqi deputy prime minister at the forthcoming war crimes tribunal in Baghdad. Tariq Aziz: 'victim of Saddam' Mr Aziz's daughter, Zeinab, wants Jacques Verges, who has defended the international terrorist Carlos the Jackal and the Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie, to represent her father when he is tried over his role in Saddam Hussein's regime. Her move follows last week's announcement that...

Pakistani cities hit by riots after killing of Muslim leader By Phil Reeves, Asia Correspondent 08 October 2003 Violence erupted in two Pakistani cities yesterday, compounding the woes of Pervez Musharraf, the military ruler, just as he is under intensifying pressure from his neighbours and Washington to crush Islamist militancy. The general's security forces were on alert last night amid fears of an explosion of bloodshed between Sunni and Shia Muslims after the assassination of Azam Tariq, the leader of a banned Sunni group and parliamentarian, on Monday. Mr Tariq's supporters, many of them religious students, rampaged through the usually...

Bush Says Iraq's Aziz Skirting the Truth By SCOTT LINDLAW The Associated Press Saturday, May 3, 2003; 2:36 PM CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush expressed unshakable confidence Saturday that banned weapons will be found in Iraq and complained that Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein's closest deputies, is not cooperating with U.S. forces who have him in custody. Bush said the deputy prime minister, the most visible face of the former Iraqi government other than Saddam's, "still doesn't know how to tell the truth." The president, at a news conference on his ranch with visiting Australian Prime Minister John Howard,...

Jan 29, 11:54 AM EST Congress Divided on Bush's Iraq Rhetoric By DAVID ESPO AP Special Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans are closing ranks, Democrats voicing doubts, after President Bush's State of the Union vow to use the "full force and might of the U.S. military" if needed to disarm Saddam Hussein's Iraq. "Unless we stand fast and stand strong, the forces of evil will not disappear," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Tuesday night after Bush's speech before Congress and a global television audience that included U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf. "This is not the time for the...