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The United States has identified 11 cases of the new mystery disease among Americans who traveled to Asia. The disease has stricken hundreds of people worldwide. Dr. Julie Gerberding, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says, “The 11 people that we are talking about today have a travel history, fever and respiratory symptoms that make them fall into a case definition for a suspect case.” The disease has been traced to a Chinese doctor who stayed on the 9th floor of the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong. Health Minister Yeoh Eng-kiong says, “Eighty percent of the infections in Hong Kong can be traced to that one person.”
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Unknowncountry has learned that there are profound divisions within the Iraqi government, and that elements of the Republican Guard are trying to make a deal under which they would surrender and open the way to Baghdad for coalition forces.

The success or failure of this deal depends on what kind of personal guarantees the U.S. is willing to extend to these units and their leaders. This negotiation may be taking place without the involvement of Saddam Hussein or his sons, and Saddam Hussein’s present situation is an open question. He could be dead, injured or captured by his own forces. If he is free and healthy, he is no longer in control of large parts of his most important military units.
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We know that Saddam Hussein has often used identical stand-ins, but he has an American twin as well: Jerry Haleva, who has a lobbying firm called Sergeant Major Communications, and also doubles for Saddam. Haleva has played Saddam in “Hot Shots” and “Hot Shots Deux,” the Coen Brothers’ “The Big Lebowski,” and the 2002 HBO mockumentary “Live from Baghdad.” His film career started in 1989 when he worked for the legislature’s Republican minority leader. “The sergeant at arms saw this picture of Saddam addressing his troops,” he says. “But he copied the picture and passed it around the Capitol with the caption, ‘Now we know what Haleva does on his weekends.'”
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Some Pakistan intelligence agents still insist that al-Qaeda terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wasn’t arrested in March because he was actually killed in a raid in September, 2002. The Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) held a news conference to show journalists evidence of the March 1st raid, but the grainy video, which did not show Mohammed’s face or any signs of struggle, wasn’t convincing, and some say it looks like a crude reconstruction. Meanwhile, a former ISI chief continues to insist that the terrorist was arrested in September in a different city.
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