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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JBTFD who wrote (483921)	10/30/2003 1:12:45 PM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

yep, UN pulling out....and THESE are the people that Kerry, and the other dwarfs want running the show in Iraq......hmmmmmmmm

To: JBTFD who wrote (483921)	10/30/2003 1:19:03 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 769670

Saddam Confidant Was Ruthless, Obedient By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 12:53 p.m. ET CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a top aide to Saddam Hussein believed to be working with an al-Qaida-linked terrorist group to coordinate attacks in Iraq, was known for his ruthlessness and standing within the Iraqi inner circle. A senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday that captured members of the Ansar al-Islam militant group have identified al-Douri as a force behind some strikes on U.S. forces. This would be the first solid evidence of links between Saddam's supporters and religious extremists. Born in 1942 to a poor peasant family in Al Dour, a village close to Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, al-Douri was one of Saddam's longtime lieutenants and officially the No. 2 man in Iraq's ruling hierarchy at the time of the Baath regime's collapse after U.S. forces stormed Baghdad on April 9. Like Saddam, al-Douri disappeared after the U.S. invasion and since has been widely rumored to be in hiding in the northern city of Mosul. Col. Steve Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment whose troops are deeply involved in hunting for Saddam supporters in the Tikrit area, said al-Douri's name ``often comes up'' among the local population. He wouldn't elaborate, but the comment suggests he still has a following there. ``We have no confirmed intelligence that he is in the Tikrit area but we know of his ties to the region,'' Russell told The Associated Press Thursday. ``Al-Douri is from here.'' Earlier this month, U.S. forces captured one of al-Douri's top associates in Baqouba, a town north of Baghdad. U.S. officials have said for at least two months they suspect al-Douri was coordinating attacks on Americans but had not previously linked him to Ansar, which has operated in a small section of northern Iraq before its camp was destroyed during the war. Pentagon officials say Ansar has tried to produce crude biological and chemical weapons and poses one of the greatest threats in Iraq. Military commanders have said they believe hundreds of non-Iraqi fighters from Ansar have entered Iraq to fight the U.S.-led occupation. Al-Douri is No. 6 on the most-wanted list of 55 Iraqis and was vice chairman of Saddam's Revolutionary Command Council. He was one of Saddam's few longtime confidants and his daughter was married briefly to Saddam's son, Odai, who was killed with his brother, Qusai, in a U.S.-led attack in July. Al-Douri was a devoted Saddam loyalist from their early days in the Iraqi underground when the Baath Party was trying to take power. He was one of the few companions to survive Saddam's frequent purges. After the 1963 Baath Party coup, al-Douri took charge of a small militia unit responsible for killing hundreds of leftists. When the party returned to power in 1968, he was named interior minister in charge of forces responsible for cracking down on regime opponents. He later held a succession of party and government positions. Saddam sent al-Douri to negotiate a deal with Kuwait before Iraq's 1990 invasion of its tiny Gulf neighbor, but his insults led to the talks' collapse, clearing the way for the invasion and seven-month occupation, which was ended by the 1991 U.S.-led Gulf War. Saddam appointed al-Douri deputy commander in chief in April 1991 after he brutally crushed Shiite and Kurdish uprisings in which tens of thousands were killed. Shortly before the latest war, Saddam appointed al-Douri to command the 1st and 5th Army Corps to stave off any American advance on Baghdad. At an Islamic summit March 5, al-Douri derided a Kuwaiti diplomat, shouting: ``Shut up, you monkey! Curse be upon your mustache (honor), you traitor.'' Al-Douri was reportedly in poor health before the war, probably suffering from cancer, but his current condition is unknown. He went to Austria for treatment in 2000.