| New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com |
Dr. Germ off & running
But Dr. Rihad Taha, estranged wife of Iraq's powerful oil minister and among Iraq's Most Wanted, had fled. She was considered the most dangerous woman in the world in the 1980s, when she weaponized enough anthrax and botulinus toxin to kill every human on the planet. The discovery came as President Bush urged the UN to lift the embargo that has crippled Iraq for a decade. But under UN resolutions, inspectors first must certify that Iraq no longer has banned weapons - and the U.S. doesn't want to allow the UN back into Iraq. Also yesterday, Bush signed a $79 billion spending bill to pay for the war, which has already cost more than $20 billion. Growing tab The Defense Department said the war tab could rise another $10 billion before combat operations end. After that, peacekeeping operations will cost about $4 billion a month. A team of Special Forces commandos and Marines carried boxes of documents out of Taha's house and took away three men found inside. The Pentagon is hoping the papers will lead to a smoking gun. Officials insist it is only a matter of time before stockpiles of banned weapons will be found, vindicating the administration's reason for launching a preemptive war. Several reported discoveries - canisters of sarin, chemical-filled warheads, buried mobile labs - have caused a flurry before turning to ashes. Gen. Tommy Franks, the U.S. war commander, said 3,000 potential weapons sites remain to be searched. As Franks, on his first visit to the capital, puffed on a victory cigar yesterday in one of the Iraqi dictator's Baghdad palaces, polls showed most Americans, pleased at having liberated Iraqis, don't care if weapons - or even Saddam - are ever found. But a skeptical world is questioning why, if Washington was so sure Saddam was hiding weapons, it cannot find them. More questions "What does this mean? What was the war for?" Russian President Vladimir Putin asked. The weapons question threatens more than American credibility. In northern Iraq, civilians in Mosul were killed by U.S. troops for a second day in a row. Three Iraqis were killed and 11 wounded after snipers shot at U.S. troops trying to stop looters from breaking into a bank. The troops returned fire wildly, witnesses said. "They just shot everybody on the street," said Abdul Jabar Ahmen Ibrahim, 44, whose 12-year-old son, Oman Abdul Jabar, was hit in the arm as he was selling pastries. Muzahim Al-Khyatte, a surgeon at Mosul Hospital, said it appeared the American troops had learned from the bloodbath the day before, when a demonstration turned violent. Central Command said seven Iraqis were killed, but officials in Mosul said 14 died. "Today, most of the shooting was aimed at the legs," said Al-Khyatte, "but [Tuesday] they were shooting to kill." |