"Why is it not bigger news that those infamous Iraqi female scientists once routinely referred to in the media as "Dr. Germ" and "Mrs. Anthrax" have been quietly released from imprisonment in Iraq without any charges being brought by their US captors?

Don't the newspapers and TV networks that all but pre-convicted them of crimes against humanity owe them - and us - the courtesy of an explanation for the sudden presumption of their innocence?

After all, it was to stop these mad leaders of Saddam Hussein's allegedly booming weapons-of-mass-destruction programs that the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003.

We were told at the time by the White House that the UN inspectors scouring the country were being blocked by lying officials and scientists, themselves complicit in breaking UN sanctions, and so we wouldn't get the truth until we could interrogate them as prisoners.

Yet, when Rihab "Dr. Germ" Taha and Huda "Mrs. Anthrax" Ammash, both of whom were once on a Pentagon most-wanted list, were released after two-and-a-half years, their US captors didn't even announce it.

When questioned afterward as to why no war crimes charges had been brought against the pair, US commander Gen. George Casey said in a joint statement with the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, that they "no longer posed a security threat to the people of Iraq and to the Coalition forces." US forces "therefore, had no legal basis to hold them any longer."

... The fact is, all of the top scientists in Iraq consistently told first UN and then US inspectors before and after the invasion that Iraq, hobbled by inspections and sanctions, had no functioning WMD programs or usable WMDs in recent years. This squared with what the UN inspectors, as well as former UN inspector and US Marine Scott Ritter and the most informed voices inside the US intelligence community, were saying before the invasion."

Dr. Germ and Mrs. Anthrax Set Free December 27, 2005

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"On the "Highway of Death," the American "Turkey Shoot" had killed thousands, perhaps "as many as" 30,000 (although most estimates are just "thousands"), retreating Iraqi soldiers, not to mention the literal mass graves created when American bulldozers buried hundreds or thousands of Iraqi troops alive during their initial attack. The "Highway of Death" (the Basra Road) extended for seven miles; just imagine the picture above, repeated nearly ad infinitum and definitely ad nauseum for seven miles worth of death, defenseless, senseless death from the air. However the 30,000 Shia died, and I can find virtually no information on the subject, it seems highly unlikely their deaths were any more brutal or morally repugnant than the ones that came at the hands of Americans."

Mass graves in Iraq December 27, 2005