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It's a familiar scene: A Clinton holdover writes a book attacking the Bush administration and is paraded around through the network newsrooms for partisan fun and his own profit. I'm talking about George Tenet's soon-to-be released book attacking Cheney and Rice, absolving himself of all error and making a puzzling claim about what he meant when he said the Iraqi WMD program was a "slam dunk" basis for justifying war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

This is a quite big deal that most of us totally missed last night: John Edwards doesn't believe there's a "global war on terror," at least not in the simple-show-of-hands sense. This is something a lot of Democrats say privately -- and something mainstream pols everywhere else in the world say publicly -- but it contests a Bush administration premise in a way very few American politicians have been comfortable in the last five and a half years. His stance -- though it doesn't seem to have been all that deliberate -- matches the recent comments of a prominent British...

As the Evidence Mounts, It's Hard to Deny That Saddam Hussein Had to GoYesterday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney, citing his role in deceiving the American public on the reason to go to war in Iraq and topple the Saddam Hussein government. Dennis Kucinich is the guy who always runs for President, so he is on the radar once every four years. Oh yeah, he is also the guy who pushes his way to the aisle to have his picture taken with President Bush at each State of the Union address. He...

WASHINGTON – A joint task force involving the military, Department of Homeland Security and police is set to begin a sophisticated and realistic drill today on how to respond to a terrorist nuclear bomb detonated on U.S. soil. Dubbed "Nobel Resolve '07," the series of tests are a follow-up to a similar operation last year called "Urban Resolve" and will run through Friday. The U.S. Joint Forces Command, which recently modeled every building in Baghdad in virtual space, is using that same technology in the Tidewater area of southern Virginia for this modeling and simulation project. Joining the command in...

I have written an article for this week’s Spectator magazine about Dave Gaubatz, a former USAF special agent who says that in 2003 he discovered four of Saddam’s WMD bunkers — only for the Iraq Survey Group to fail to excavate these sites, allowing the material to be looted by the Iraqis, Syrians and Russia and taken to Syria. If Mr Gaubatz is correct, it means two things: that the invasion of Iraq was more than justified on the grounds originally given, that Saddam was in breach of the terms of the ceasefire of the 1991 war and that he...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands: A Dutch appeals court is to begin hearing the case Monday of a businessman convicted of war crimes for selling chemicals to Saddam Hussein that the Iraqi dictator used in the mass killings of Kurds. Frans van Anraat, 64, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in December 2005 for selling tons of precursor chemicals that were made into mustard gas and nerve gas unleashed on Kurdish villages in northern Iraq in 1987-88. Van Anraat said he didn't know the chemicals — some of which were purchased in the United States — could be used for anything...

Earlier this week, Iran?s spiritual leader Ali Khamenei began preparing public opinion for Iran?s withdrawal from the nuclear-nonproliferation regime. Today we have reports that the Iranians detained 15 British seamen. These and other incidents appear to be unconnected ? but they may not be. The moment of truth in the Iranian nuclear standoff is drawing near. And the Security Council route nearly exhausted, so a big part of the standoff is about to go largely off-camera. Already, things are not what they seem. First of all: Don?t necessarily believe what the British say about what those sailors were up to...

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson wants to impeach President Bush. In arguing that point, he asked Fox News' Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday, "Have you seen the National Intelligence Estimate that was provided in October of 2002, in which the intelligence agency under the State Department said that Iraq was not building up a nuclear capability, that this whole story about the aluminum tubes (reportedly sought by Saddam Hussein in Niger) was completely off base?" I decided to re-read the NIE excerpts that the administration released. What does the report say? "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as...

House National Security Committee Military Procurement Subcommittee and Military Research and Development Subcommittee Clinton Administration's Response to the Threat Posed by Proliferation I believe today's hearing is one of the most important hearings we will have this year. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the missiles that can carry them is clearly among the most significant challenges facing the United States in the postCold War world. Even the Clinton Administration has recognized this fact. In November 1994, the President declared a "national emergency" because of "the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy...

The troop “surge” in Iraq is also a signal to Iran—but stopping Tehran’s nukes for good will require a different kind of leverage. The world seems headed for a showdown in the Middle East within the next two years over the issue of Iranian nuclear capacity. The stakes are high. On the one hand, there is the emergence of a new nuclear power, whose rhetoric and revolutionary record seem to pose an existential threat to Israel and challenge centuries of Sunni dominance of Islam. On the other hand, there is an explosive set of potential military actions and economic repercussions,...

Hugo Chavez's power equation is based upon two main components: resources and strategy. For about five years this equation worked well, with both components on the rise. In the last year, however, his power equation has been weakening significantly. His objective of leading a global crusade against the U.S. had proven to be extremely costly. He is said to have spent one billion dollars in trying, unsuccessfully, to gain a seat in the United Nations Security Council. At this moment there are serious food shortages in Venezuela as he has increased government control over production and established unrealistic prices for...

Israel will next month stage its first-ever nationwide drill simulating a nuclear and chemical missile attack on its cities, rescue services said Monday. The exercise was initiated by the army's homefront corps in the wake of last summer's war in Lebanon and Iran's calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and its controversial nuclear programme. Israel suspects is Iran is aiming to develop an atomic bomb, but Tehran insists its programme is for civilian energy purposes. The main scenarios which will be simulated are a massive rocket attack on cities as well as a "conventional and non-conventional missile attack,"...

With respect to Saddam Hussein and the threat he presents, we must ask ourselves a simple question: Why? Why is Saddam Hussein pursuing weapons that most nations have agreed to limit or give up? Why is Saddam Hussein guilty of breaking his own cease-fire agreement with the international community? Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try, and responsible nations that have them attempt to limit their potential for disaster? Why did Saddam Hussein threaten and provoke? Why does he develop missiles that exceed allowable limits? Why did Saddam Hussein lie and deceive...

An Iraqi terror group posted information and photos on its website,claiming a chemical attack on US troops in Iraq.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union called Thursday for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, responding to recent comments by the Israeli prime minister that have been interpreted as acknowledging his country has a nuclear arsenal. In interview with a Germany television station broadcast Monday, Ehud Olmert appeared to list Israel among the world's nuclear powers. The next day, however, he denied having "outed" his country's nuclear program. Although Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear weapons, it has maintained a policy of ambiguity since the 1960s, refusing to confirm or deny it. "The position of the...

Four Democratic senators demanded on Saturday that the Bush administration explain its decision to post documents from Saddam Hussein's covert nuclear program on a now-shuttered federal Web site. The lawmakers told President Bush's director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, that it was "shocking that sensitive documents directly related to the design of a nuclear weapon were made public by the executive branch." Sens. Harry Reid of Nevada, Carl Levin of Michigan, Joe Biden of Delaware and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia also questioned whether political pressure from congressional Republicans played a role. The letter was released just days before congressional...

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb. Last night,...

In what is so far the most important evidence of Saddam personal involvement in re-building Iraq nuclear program , document CMPC-2003-012331.pdf dated January 2001 indicates that during a meeting between Saddam and the Staff of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Organization Saddam was asked by the Organization Staff to give his permission for re-using the infamous “ Degussa Vacuum furnaces ” that were used in the previous and prohibited Iraq nuclear program. These furnaces can be used to melt uranium and other nuclear related activities.The Degussa Vacuum furnaces were supplied to Iraq in the 1980’s by a German firm (Degussa AG...

SAN ANTONIO — In a debate telecast statewide, Republican U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison repeated her call Thursday for the United States to maintain its commitment to stabilizing Iraq rather than "cutting and running because times are rough." Hutchison, a senator for more than 13 years, also said she would not have voted for the United States to invade the country in 2003 if she'd known there were no weapons of mass destruction there. Barbara Ann Radnofsky Democratic challenger says Texas needs fresh leadership. Scott Lanier Jameson Libertarian says labeling enemies incites challenge. Responding to a reporter's question, Hutchison said:...

  Dave Gaubatz A former U.S. federal agent and counter-terrorism specialist deployed to Iraq before the war says he waged a three-year, unsuccessful battle to get officials to search four sites where he believes the former Saddam regime buried weapons of mass destruction. Dave Gaubatz, an Arabic linguist who now serves as chief investigator with the Dallas County Medical Examiner, told his story to Ryan Mauro of WorldThreats.com. Gaubatz said the suspected sites have never been searched by the Iraq Survey Group, the fact-finding mission dispatched by the U.S.-led multinational force. Two sites are within the city limits of Nasariyah,...