Saddam loyalist dies
Tariq Aziz, who served as Saddam Hussein’s deputy prime minister and was the international face of his Baathist regime, died in an Iraqi hospital. He was 79.
Aziz was transferred to the Hussein Hospital in the southern Dhi Qar province Friday after his health deteriorated a day earlier, Hussein Khalid, director of Nasiriya prison where he was being held, said by phone.
The longtime loyalist of Saddam, and only Christian in his cabinet, was one of the most recognized faces of the dictatorship in part because of the eloquent English he used to parry criticisms of the regime. He served as foreign minister from 1983 to 1991 and deputy premier from 1979 until the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
As his country’s deputy prime minister, the English speaker cultivated a polished image. He was also, by necessity, a great survivor, side-stepping numerous purges and at least one assassination attempt.
But his suave exterior could not dispel the fact that he was essentially a Goebbels-like apologist for a regime that committed rape, abduction and murder both abroad and at home, where Iraq’s Shia Muslims and Kurdish minority were often victimized. Indeed, it was for his part in such persecution that Aziz was sentenced to death in October 2010.
From a distance his status could often appear to be that of crisis manager — a mediator positioned midway between the Iraqi government and the outside world. But Aziz always lived politically in the shadow of his master and was protected by Saddam’s security apparatus. While usually impeccably polite, he could be abrasive and short-tempered with foreign reporters who had the temerity to challenge his version of events.
About a month after the 2003 invasion, Aziz surrendered to U.S. forces in Baghdad. He was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity about seven years later, but President Jalal Talabani refused to sign the order, saying Aziz was elderly and in poor health.