Free Republic

Cairo - Perhaps it was the report picked up from Western media claiming that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had reached a secret deal with Libya to provide sanctuary for his family and inner circle in exchange for several billion dollars. Or maybe it was the repeated criticism of fellow Arab leaders, whom Hussein has been trying to win over in his effort to head off a U.S. attack. Whatever the reason, the Iraqi government was not saying yesterday why it had banned a newspaper owned by Hussein's eldest son, Uday, from publishing for a month. The tabloid, Babel, is widely...

Is there a place on the web where it logs all of the abuses of Saddam's son Uday? How is he compared to Qusay?? I have heard there are many stories on the web, but I can't find them.

<p>With war looming in Iraq, it's more crucial than ever to get cogent analysis of the country and its despotic leader, so what does Cinemax offer? Irony. Smarmy, smarmy irony. "Uncle Saddam," which airs Tuesday night on the cable station, gives viewers an exclusive look inside the palaces, museums and other edifices that Hussein maintains on Iraqi soil, and it also provides a time line of Hussein's life, from his troubled childhood to his post-Kuwait grip on power. Filmmaker Joel Soler does it with so much snideness and smugness, however, that his movie is almost unwatchable.</p>

The Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of Saddam Hussein By MATT ZOLLER SEITZ c.2002 Newhouse News Service NEW YORK -- As the United States prepares to go to war with Iraq, "Uncle Saddam," a new documentary about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, would seem to fall under the heading, "Know thine enemy." But this film by French director Joel Soler is so full of weird, unpleasant details that viewers might classify it under a different heading: "More Information Than I Needed." Combining testimony from Saddam's cabinet ministers, video footage from Saddam's official chroniclers and news snippets from Middle Eastern sources, "Uncle...

The daring documentarian By Darroch Greer Video Systems, Feb 1, 2002 Documentary maker Joel Soler is a patriotic Frenchman who does not take the blue, white, and red of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” for granted. With his small DV camera, Soler is taking on the brutal oppressors of the world — Hitler, Hussein, and bin Laden — single-handedly going where few Westerners dare to tread, and exposing the deranged designs of these enemies of freedom. This may sound a bit like a comic book, but Soler's story has plenty of action, intrigue, and humor. A former television producer in France, Soler...

Iraq's Crazy Uncle Joel Soler's documentary looks at Saddam Hussein's foibles. by Rufus Jones 11/19/2002 12:00:00 AM FOR AS LONG as there has been a Saddam Hussein, Saddam scholars have been confronted by a question with no easy answer: just what kind of crazy is he? He reigns by terror at home, while preying on anti-American sentiment among the conflict-averse abroad. So is Saddam calculated-crazy, crazy like the cross-dressing, discharge-seeking Klinger character in "M*A*S*H," crazy like a fox? Or is he certifiable, driving-with-one's-lights-on-dim, two-pence-short-of-a-bob crazy? Some say he evidences that special brand of tin-pot dictator crazy--the kind of crazy that...

<p>CNN) -- A French filmmaker finagled his way into Iraq claiming he was working on a project about the country's architecture. Two months after his arrival, with Iraqi power brokers feeling comfortable with his presence, Joel Soler began shooting his actual project, a documentary about Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein.</p>

Two years ago, Joel Soler chose to go on a dangerous journey to the Middle East to shoot an irreverent biography of a dictator who was then, in Mr. Soler's words, "a dead story." Now the subject of "Uncle Saddam," which is being shown Tuesday on Cinemax, is probably the world's most talked-about person. As the world debates about war with Iraq, Mr. Soler's film introduces a strange new perspective on Saddam Hussein. Did you know that Saddam likes to be greeted with a kiss near the armpit? That he sometimes fishes with grenades? That he is building the world's...