Free Republic

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein's fear of internal rebellion led him to distrust his military commanders even after U.S. forces began their invasion in 2003, crippling the country's defenses, the New York Times reported in Sunday editions. Citing a classified U.S. military report as well other documents and interviews, the Times also said that top Iraqi commanders were shocked when Saddam told them three months before the war that he had no weapons of mass destruction. Prepared nearly a year ago, the classified military report shows that Saddam discounted the possibility of a full-scale American invasion, the Times said....

Document ISGP-2003-00300134 contains Top Secret And Personal letters that carry Saddam orders to do radiation and biological testing on the Presidential sites that were attacked by the US in December 1998. Beginning of translation of the first top secret and personal memo In the Name of God the Most Merciful The Most Compassionate Top Secret And Personal The Republic of Iraq The Presidential Secretariat Number: 537304/1 18/12/1998 ORDER Mr. President The Leader (God Protects Him) Order: Form committees from the Ministry of Health and the Military Industrialization Commission and The Atomic Energy Organization and The Special Security Service with its...

Details of Bioweapons Lab Emerge, but Not Proof U.S. intelligence analysts have been closely examining satellite images of the west bank of the Tigris River in Baghdad for signs of a laboratory rumored to exist there. Called Tahhaddy, or "Challenge," the lab is purported to have 85 employees and a top-secret mission: making biological weapons for Iraq's military.Details about the lab have trickled out of Iraq in recent months in accounts from defectors and Iraqi exiles opposed to President Saddam Hussein. They tell of underground test chambers, heavy security and a viral strain code-named "Blue Nile," which sounds suspiciously like...

Saddam Hussein spent billions building dozens of vast, gaudy palaces all over Iraq, many of which are still occupied by US troops. But the Iraqi government is divided - as usual - on what to do with them once the soldiers have gone... [snip] ...‘For sale/rent: 80 presidential palaces, average unit living space half-a-million square feet. Attached gardens featuring disused swimming pools, personal zoos/nuclear bunkers etc. Rooms fitted with thrones and gold lavatories, en suite torture chamber optional. Some bomb damage. Suit megalomaniac or similar.’

This Friday and Saturday, the American Drama Group Europe (ADGE) will be performing William Shakespeare’s 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' at Drottningholms Slottspark Teatern in Stockholm. Producer Grantly Marshall talks to The Local about touring the castles of Europe and coming to Sweden.

How effective were UN sanctions against Saddam ? Liberals say, "Very effective !" This cynic says otherwise. Read and draw your own conclusions.

Mon Jun 5 09:31:01 2006 Pacific Time New Mexico's Chaco Canyon: A Place of Kings and Palaces? BOULDER, Colo., June 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- Kings living in palaces may have ruled New Mexico's Chaco Canyon a thousand years ago, causing Pueblo people to reject the brawny, top-down politics in the centuries that followed, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder archaeologist. University of Colorado Museum anthropology Curator Steve Lekson, who has studied Chaco Canyon for several decades, said one argument for royalty comes from the rich, crypt-style burials of two men discovered deep in a Chaco Canyon "great house"...

ASSOCIATED PRESS An Iraqi scientist has told U.S. interrogators that her team destroyed Iraq's stock of anthrax in 1991 by dumping it practically at the gates of one of Saddam's main palaces, but never told U.N. inspectors for fear of angering the dictator. Rihab Rashid Taha's decision in 2003 to remain silent stoked suspicions of those who contended Iraq still harbored biological weapons, contributing to the U.S. decision to invade Iraq two years ago this month. "Whether those involved understood the significance and disastrous consequences of their actions is unclear," the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group says of Mrs. Taha and...

The Taxpayers League of Minnesota has started a great feature, which highlights extravagent government structures in that state, The "Taj Mahal of the Week." Nearly every day, I drive past a stunningly beautiful and extravagent public school campus in berkeley. Perched on a prime hillside lot, with incredible views of the Bay, bridges, and mountains, the building itself features a large glassed-in atrium, the finest materials, and beautiful lanscaping on its oversized grounds. It must have cost at least 50 million dollars. To the causal eye, it looks more like an elegant corporate headquarters building than a school. Of course,...

If anybody wondered why the sainted United Nations, France, Russia and Syria joined forces in trying to block the U.S. from ousting the brutal Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq the answer is now becoming clear; they feared exposure of the corruption into which they had dragged the now-infamous Oil for Food program. That program was meant to allow Saddam to sell a certain amount of oil outside of the bounds of the UN sanctions. The proceeds, handled by the UN, were to be used to buy food and medicine and other basic necessities for the Iraqi people, thus keeping the...

For the past 25 years when Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, why did Saddam Hussein not use those weapons of mass destruction against the US or Israel, or hand them over to the Al-Qaeda terrorists or the terrorists in the west bank, even though during the past 25 years, on and off, the following were done which angered and humiliated Saddam Hussein (1) Israel destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactors in the 80s (2) Through the Iran-Contra scandal, the US supplied arms to Iran in the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s (3) In the 90s, the US ousted Saddam...

On September 19, 1997, the New York Times announced the discovery of a group of earthen mounds in northeastern Louisiana. The site, known as Watson Brake, includes 11 mounds 26 feet high linked by low ridges into an oval 916 feet long. What is remarkable about this massive complex is that it was built around 3400 B.C., more than 3,000 years before the development of farming communities in eastern North America, by hunter-gatherers, at least partly mobile, who visited the site each spring and summer to fish, hunt, and collect freshwater mussels... Social complexity cannot exist unless I it...

Help settle a bar bet! A colleague claims that Sen. Kerry has today, more palaces than Saddam Hussein had when he was dictator of Iraq.He went on to qualify his bet by saying that he included those palaces that Kerry would claim weren't his but, "belonged to the family," or "belonged to the wife or one of her interests" and that he also included all of Kerry's "secret" palaces such as those private apartments in Paris, Rio and Tokyo that his wife has but aren't widely known. He's not talking about oppulance and he concedes that Saddams were probably more...

UJA, Iraq - U.S. authorities on Wednesday prepared to demolish Saddam Hussein's five palatial homes in the village where he was born, having stripped them of expensive marbles, tiles and valuable furniture. The 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, based in Tikrit, received permission from coalition authorities Tuesday to go ahead with the demolition in Uja village, said the commander, Lt. Col. Steve Russell. For the past couple of months, contractors hired by the U.S. forces have been removing valuable materials from the homes including hand-cut Italian bricks and polished marble tiles, Russell told reporters taken on a tour of the...

King asks poor Swazis to pay for 11 palaces for wives Rory Carroll in Johannesburg Tuesday January 13, 2004 The Guardian (UK) He did not get a private jet, but King Mswati III has found another way to drain Swaziland's treasury: a palace for each of his 11 wives. Sub-saharan Africa's last absolute monarch has reportedly asked his government for £8m to redecorate three royal palaces and build 11 new ones - a big sum for a tiny country reeling from drought, food shortages and HIV/Aids. Most of the wives share a single palace and occupy guest houses, but before...

Just reported on Fox News.

US soldiers caught stashing Iraqi lootTHE GUARDIANFriday, Apr 25, 2003,Page 1 Four American soldiers have been arrested for trying to steal nearly US$1 million found hidden in former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's Baghdad palaces, it was reported Wednesday. Three are accused of taking US$600,000 in US$100 bills and hiding them in a tree, while the fourth allegedly took US$300,000 and stashed it in several places, including the glove compartment of his truck. Jonathan Foreman, a New York Post reporter with the 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment, in Baghdad, quoted Major Kent Rideout saying that the men would be court martialled....

Top Stories - U.S. News & World Report Saddam's World Sun Apr 20, 8:00 PM ET BY KEVIN WHITELAW In Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown of Tikrit, at least 35 palaces line the banks of the Tigris River. By the bizarre standards (news - web sites) of Saddam's world, none of them are particularly special, just a few more flashy mansions in his gaudy collection of exotic extravagances. One sports flying swans suspended between marble pillars from the two-story entryway. Many features seem to come standard--a movie theater, Saddam's initials dramatically carved into ceilings, and the obligatory...

Saddam's Family Lifestyles Shock Iraqis By NIKO PRICE Associated Press Writer April 20, 2003, 1:24 PM EDT BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The blacksmith paused from his looting of the palace to gape at a door a foot thick, and at the empty, marble-lined safe inside. "This safe is as big as the room I rent, and I live there with my wife and two children," said Ahmed Hamza, 28. "I thought the rumors were exaggerated, but these people lived in a different world." This house was owned by Hala Hussein, Saddam's thirtysomething daughter, whereabouts currently unknown. She had two more across...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 4/9/03 - Baghdad, Counterattack, 3 palaces taken, Basra, STRIKE VIDEOS BREAKING: Al Monsour, Baghdad - More shock and awe after humint BREAKING: Baghdad - captured two al-Samoud 2 missiles BREAKING: Baghdad - Saddam's airport palace BREAKING: Baghdad - Saddam's central palace BREAKING: Counterattack - A-10 Warthog and tanks return fire BREAKING: Iraqi soldiers in civilian clothes BREAKING: Iraqis turning on the Ba'aath party BREAKING: Basra - British heroes take the center BREAKING: Basra - Ba'ath Party headquarters captured BREAKING: Basra Presidential palace Captured BREAKING: Basra - revenge and looting BREAKING: Basra -...