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BECKLEY, W.Va. (AP) -- A congressman skeptical of the need for U.S. military action against Iraq says he is flying to Baghdad, hoping to answer questions about a possible invasion and seeking a meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said he wants to reassure Iraqi citizens that Americans are ``not out to wage war for war's sake.'' ``I'm not going as a secretary of state,'' Rahall said Tuesday. ``I'm not going as a weapons inspector. And I'm not calling upon this administration to do one thing or another. I just have a lot of questions.'' Rahall,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate panel has begun an inquiry to determine what a top official in Saddam Hussein's government told the CIA about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in late 2002 as the Bush administration made its case for war. ADVERTISEMENT The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said in a September 8 report that it launched the investigation after the CIA's former chief of European clandestine operations appeared on the CBS' "60 Minutes" news magazine in April. The official, Tyler Drumheller, told CBS that the Iraqi government source had said Iraq had no active unconventional weapons program. Drumheller's...

WASHINGTON — In a "60 Minutes" interview on April 23, Tyler Drumheller, a former chief of the CIA's Europe division, made a sensational charge. He claimed that President Bush and his White House ignored intelligence before the invasion of Iraq indicating that Saddam Hussein had no had weapons of mass destruction. On the CBS-TV show, and in subsequent media interviews that appeared throughout the world, Drumheller said that the White House was excited about the fact that the CIA was getting information straight from Naji Sabri, the then Iraqi foreign minister. But when the White House found out this source...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the period before the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein's foreign minister Naji Sabri, was a secret paid source of the CIA, "NBC Nightly News" reported on Monday. Citing unnamed current and former U.S. intelligence officials, NBC said Sabri provided details of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be more accurate than CIA estimates. Intelligence sources said Sabri was paid more than $100,000 through an intermediary in a September 2002 deal brokered by the French, NBC reported. Sabri may have thought he was working with the French, but some U.S. intelligence officials believe he knew...

From leaky roofs to secret agents: how the files I found in Iraq's looted foreign ministry cast light on the paranoid world of Saddam Hussein How many Iraqi officials does it take to fix the leaky roof of a diplomat's house in London? How long does a skilled translator need to convert one of George Galloway's parliamentary speeches into Arabic? In almost 1, 000 pages of Arabic prose, each stamped with the Eagle crest of Iraq, the files found inside the foreign ministry in Baghdad cast a somewhat surreal light on the questions that turned the bureaucratic wheels of Saddam...

U.S. drops top Iraqi general from most-wanted list SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COMThursday, April 24, 2003 The United States has left out the commander of President Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard from a list of most wanted Iraqis. Gen. Maher Sufian does not appear on the U.S. list of 55 most wanted Iraqis. Sufian was commander of the six Republican Guard units responsible for the defense of Baghdad. The absence of Sufian from the U.S. list has sparked claims that the Republican Guard commander struck a deal with the U.S.-led coalition. Arab diplomatic sources said Sufian is believed to have...

Sources in Cairo have told Al Bawaba.com that the arrival of Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri to attend the Arab Foreign Ministers' meeting was coordinated with Washington. Sabri, clad in Arab costume, left Baghdad aboard a car on Saturday and got to Syria early Sunday after traveling hundreds kilometers on dangerous and unsafe roads. The sources mentioned the Sunday incident near the Syrian-Iraqi border as an example for this information. On Sunday morning, just hours after Sabri arrived in Syria, U.S. and British warplanes raided a Syrian passenger bus carrying workers from Iraq back to Syria. Five Syrian civilians were...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said late on Sunday that President Saddam Hussein was alive and well despite intensive U.S. and British bombing of his palaces in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. "Mr. Saddam Hussein is very well, in good condition and he is leading our people and our fight against this colonial aggression," Sabri told reporters in Cairo ahead of a meeting of Arab foreign ministers on Monday. "He is much better than Mr. (George W.) Bush and Mr. (Tony) Blair," Sabri said in a pointed reference to the leaders of the United States and Britain, which...

Iraq dismisses latest ‘democracy’ speech SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri slammed US President George W. Bush Thursday as “a maniac” a day after the US leader declared that deposing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would help build democracy and peace in the Middle East. “He’s a maniac and mad, that’s all I have to say,” Sabri said at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh where he and his regional counterparts were meeting ahead of an Arab summit Saturday. Bush, building his case for war, said Wednesday that a new government in Iraq could feed a democratic movement across...

Filed at 6:59 p.m. ET CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Egypt's foreign minister said Saturday that he expected Iraq to accept the U.N. resolution to disarm but that Baghdad had not yet made a formal decision. ``I think we can expect a positive position by the Iraqis,'' Ahmed Maher told reporters after Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri explained Iraq's position to the foreign ministers of the 22-member Arab League. ``We heard the Iraqi point of view and the history of relations with the United Nations and the inspectors and their readiness to cooperate ... already expressed in September, but they haven't...

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has said that Iraq will consider a new UN Security Council resolution on disarmament, as long as it does not serve as an excuse for US military action. "If a resolution is issued which respects the UN charter, international law and Iraq's sovereignty, security and independence, and does not provide a cover for America's ill intentions, we will view it in a way that makes us deal with it," he told visiting Austrian far-right politician Joerg Haider. The news comes as US President George W Bush met his top security advisors in an effort to decide...

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) - Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri held talks with the king of Bahrain on Saturday in a tour of Persian Gulf states aimed at finding support against a possible U.S. attack on Iraq. Sabri delivered a letter from President Saddam Hussein to the king, Sheik Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the official Bahrain News Agency reported. The letter dealt the current situation in the region and issues of mutual concern, the agency said, without elaborating. During the meeting, Sheik Hamad said Iraq must comply with U.N. resolutions to keep stability in the region and "spare the area...

The official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida chose the anniversary of the Moslem 9/11 attacks on the United States to print two political cartoons ridiculing the U.S. The first cartoon shows the date “September 11” attached to a pair of legs chasing Uncle Sam as he runs away in fright. The second one depicts the US response to 9/11 as immoral by portraying the Twin Towers over a mass of dead bodies - supposed “victims of American imperialism.” The famous date is shown by the word “September” and the towers in the form of number 11. One of the towers...

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri arrived in Beijing on Monday at the beginning of a three-day visit, the state Xinhua news agency said. Beijing has not released any details of Sabri's itinerary, with Xinhua saying merely that he is visiting at the invitation of Chinese counterpart Tang Jiaxuan to "exchange views on bilateral relations and other issues of common concern". However, any talks are expected to deal with United States’ threats to launch a military campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime. A diplomatic source in Baghdad said earlier this month that Sabri was expected to review the US threats with...