Just arrived back in California. Did I report that Heathrow is the dirtiest, filthiest, and most inconvenient airport there is? And why is the press not reporting about Iyad `Allaw mediating between Saddam's Ba`th and "high ranking US officials"? He was even asked on AlArabiya whether this was with the new Ba`th (faction). No, he said: it is the Ba`th headed by Saddam's deputy, `Iazzat Ad-Duri. Also, yesterday, all Saudi newspapers (Al-Hayat and Sharq Al-Awsat and others) led on the front page with pictures of Hamas goons hitting a Fath kid sent by Dahlan gangs to provoke clashes. And yesterday, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian boy. I deliberately looked at Al-Hayat and Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat to see if it was printed on the front pages: that particular story was buried inside the newspaper. I finished the biography of Dick Cheney by Steven Hayes. Cheney does not normally talk to the press: but his reporter caught his eyes when he wrote the article "Why Dick Cheney was right" for the Weekly Standard a few years ago. Nothing new in the book, except justifications.
PS: Al-Ba`th, according to Al-Quds Al-`Arabi, denied `Allawi's claims of the meeting. With`Allawi, you can never know. He would claim that he was meeting with "insurgents" when he was having lunch with his assistants.