Tariq Aziz Dead
Tariz Aziz, Saddam Hussein’s foreign minster, is dead at 79.
He was sentenced to death by the Iraqi Supreme Court in 2010 for the persecution of religious parties under Saddam’s rule but was never executed.
He surrendered to US troops in 2003 shortly after the fall of Baghdad.
Aziz, who was known for his black-rimmed glasses and love of cigars, first came to prominence while serving as foreign minister during the first Gulf War in 1991.
As a Christian in a mainly Sunni Muslim government, he was not considered a member of Saddam Hussein’s innermost circle.
Copyright 2015 Liberaland
3 responses to Tariq Aziz Dead
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ExPFCWintergreen June 5th, 2015 at 11:55
There were rumors for years that Aziz was actually on the payroll of a certain central intelligence agency that shall remain nameless.
arc99 June 5th, 2015 at 12:25
I would find that hard to believe only because I cannot imagine that a senior official in Saddam’s government would be able to receive income that Saddam did not know about.
Maybe the funds were delivered in the dead of night, in the middle of the desert, in a plain brown envelope containing unmarked bills. Otherwise, I am not sure how any measurable income could be kept secret under Saddam’s regime.
ExPFCWintergreen June 5th, 2015 at 12:31
Spy stuff is strange, though. One of the things that came out during all the post-invasion re-analysis of the intelligence that got us into the war was that there was a highly placed source in the regime. And of all the “face cards” in the famous deck, catching Aziz never seemed to be a high priority — and when he was caught, there wasn’t much in the way of sound and fury about it. He might have been a source for an allied service, who knows? But there was so much money floating around the regime at that time — and Aziz wasn’t really an inner-circle guy, being a non-Tikriti and a Christian — that it wouldn’t be surprising. And it could easily have been deposited elsewhere.