Is Bush secretly negotiating with Saddam's Ba`thists? Bush, despite his claims in his speech yesterday of his imagined victories--victories that only he can see and recognize--is really desperate for any real progress in Iraq. He would do anything, I think, to reduce the pace and intensity of the insurgency. Today, I read that Huda `Ammash (the only female member of the Saddam's Revolutionary Command Council (I hate the word "revolution" in the same sentence with the Ba`th--the Ba`th is counter revolutionary, not revolutionary although Salah Jadid may have had revolutionary tendencies but he languished in jail until his death during the reign of Hafidh Al-Asad) was released from US occupation custody. It can't be sudden mercy and compassion on the part of the US occupation apparatus. I am suspicious because the Iraqi Ba`thist literature in recent months has been insisting on the release of `Ammash, making this release their number one condition for any talk even with the government. Something is going on, but I am sure that the New York Times--which sat on the news of Bush's spying on American citizens for a whole year--will inform us in 4 or 5 years. Maybe when Judith Miller locates WMDs in Iraq. Is it true that Miller is preparing a story about Iranian WMDs? I heard that her source on the Iran story is one Muhammad Rida Chalabi.