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Article: The house Saddam built. (Saddam Hussein) (International)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- September 29, 1990
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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TWO years ago it struck Iraq's president that a couple of his lieutenants were overweight. He wanted them thin, and published their weights every week in Al Thawra, the party newspaper, until they were. The two men-Tariq Aziz Iraq's foreign minister) and Taha Yassin Ramadan (deputy prime minister)-presumably took it in good part. After all, they now owe their good health to Saddam Hussein.
So do a lot of other Iraqis. More than Syria's Hafez Assad, more even than the late Ayatollah Khomeini, Iraq's president is synonymous with the country he leads. He has had plenty of time at the top to fix things that way: it is 11 years since he deposed the previous ...