Epstein Secrets

re about the Kingdom's alleged funding of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program in the 1980s. In Khilew

uced the faulty WMD assessment. Less attention has been paid to the more puzzling question of why so many people readily accepted the argument that Saddam would arm Al Qaeda with nuclear weapons, despite the obvious absurdity of the claim. It is this latter question that also seems most relevant amid

fically, although Khilewi mentioned the Pakistani program, the overwhelming majority of his allegations were about the Kingdom's alleged funding of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program in the 1980s. In Khilewi's telling, Saudi Arabia gave Saddam at least $5 billion from 1985 through the Gulf War, in return

Although Iran is often caricatured as a nation of irrational, would-be martyrs, its behavior has been ruthlessly rational for the most part. Even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- a far more committed ideologue than his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- agreed to end the Iran-h War in 1988 when his subordinates told hi

They recognized that no one would believe that United Nations forces in Korea would be so barbaric as to resort to such weapons. In 1987 and 1988, Saddam Hussein launched attacks on no fewer than 40 Kurdish villages in northern Iraq, using new mixtures of mustard gas and various nerve agents such as Sarin,

as to resort to such weapons. In 1987 and 1988, Saddam Hussein launched attacks on no fewer than 40 Kur

resort to such weapons. In 1987 and 1988, Saddam Hussein launched attacks on no fewer than 40 Kurdish vil

ood. And in Iran in 1979, individuals who were ardent secular nationalists donned Islamic garb and supported the Islamic Revolution and its leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. For them, Islam became a more potent outlet for nationalist ambitions than the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who had lost political legitimacy. Th

icana. Despite Putin's well-known opposition to the Iraq War, he is also cultivating a strong military and energy-based relationship with the post- Saddam government in Baghdad. Gazprom and Rosneft have moved in to capitalize on Iraq's increased oil and gas outputs. Last summer, contracts were signed

, and Bahrain. Although Iranian-Saudi enmity dates back many decades, it became acute after the 1979 Islamic Revolution when Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, began to spread his revolutionary brand of Shia Islam across the region. The impact was not immediately evident. Iran's war with Iraq in the 1980