The Raw Story | US Embassy offers just $12,500 for boy slain by Blackwater: "For the families of Iraqi civilians killed by the US security firm Blackwater last month, it may be difficult to place a monetary value on the loss of their loved ones -- but they agree it has to more than the few thousand dollars currently being offered up by the US Embassy. The embassy made a rare move on Wednesday to compensate surviving victims and the families of fatalities related to a Sept. 16 shooting incident involving Blackwater's private security guards, according to a report in the Washington Post by Sudarsan Raghavan. But the money being offered -- just 12,500 in one case involving the death of a 10-year old boy named Ali -- is being greeted with disgust by many. Ali's father, Mohammad Hafud Abdul Razaq, turned the embassy's offer down cold, telling the US Embassy's deputy chief of mission Patracia Butenis the amount was 'far too little.' What he wanted, according to the Post, was an admission of guilt from Blackwater itself."
Iraqi weapons 'expert' unmasked as a fraud - Independent Online Edition > Americas : "The Iraqi defector whose claims regarding Saddam Hussein's biological warfare capabilities were central to the US government's case for the 2003 invasion, despite repeated warnings that they were dubious, has been unmasked by a television documentary. The informer, codenamed Curveball was Rafid Ahmed Alwan who, in 1999, turned up at a refugee centre in Germany seeking political asylum. He went on to convince the Pentagon he was a brilliant chemist who had helped develop mobile biological warfare laboratories."
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