Posted on 08/24/2005 6:23:18 PM PDT by REactor
Wife and daughters of Tariq Aziz in tears as they tell our correspondent of their first prison reunion
IT WAS their first meeting in 28 months, and the family of Tariq Aziz, 69, wept as they described their reunion in an American prison outside Baghdad this week with the man who served for more than a decade as the public face of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
“He looked like he had turned 80,” his wife, Violette, told The Times. “He was frail and too tired to walk, even inside the small meeting room. He had to lean against his American military escort to move a step down.
“Much of his thick hair and moustache had shed and greyed,” she added, tears running down her cheeks.
She said that he had lost more than 30lb (14kg). Doctors had pulled out most of his decaying teeth to make way for dentures. He was taking more than a dozen pills a day to control high blood pressure, diabetes and heart problems.
But he was still able to crack jokes. His daughter, Zainab, 38, said: “He told my Mum: ‘You had been nagging me for years to loose some weight. Now the Americans have helped me achieve that’. ”
Mr Aziz — urbane, confident and bespectacled — was Saddam’s leading apologist, serving as his Foreign Minister before the Gulf War and as Deputy Prime Minister before the US-led invasion of Iraq.
He was No 43 — the eight of spades — in the coalition’s “most wanted” pack of cards but he surrendered meekly when US troops arrived at the house in Baghdad where he had been hiding for some weeks after the invasion. Since then Mr Aziz, Saddam and other leading regime members have been held in solitary confinement in the heavily fortified army base next to Baghdad airport.
Mr Aziz has yet to be charged and there are signs that his captors are beginning to treat him more leniently. Two weeks ago he was allowed to telephone his family for the first time and now they have been allowed to visit him, albeit for only 30 minutes.
It was a perilous journey for Mrs Aziz and her two daughters, Zainab and Maysa, who fled to neighbouring Jordan after the invasion. They had to drive 600 miles through the most lawless region of Iraq to reach Baghdad, travelling in separate vehicles to reduce the chances of them all being killed. Their old home on the Tigris was long ago commandeered by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Shia leader and President of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution, so they had to stay with Mr Aziz’s sister.
Gaining entrance to the base through multiple security checks was a gruelling and traumatic experience but scarcely more traumatic than their meeting with Mr Aziz. They were allowed to hug but only for three minutes before an escort moved him behind a partition. Thereafter communication was through a glass screen. The visitors were soon in tears but Mr Aziz, wearing a dark grey tracksuit, remained composed.
He was most concerned about the welfare of his family, who are living in a modest, rented flat in a middle-class Amman suburb, their assets frozen. Initially, the Jordanian Royal Family supported them but Mrs Aziz will say only that old friends of her husband are helping them out. “He is so worried about us because he knows we have no money,” she said.
He asked for news of his younger son, Saddam, who was named after the former Iraqi leader and who is now studying dentistry at a university in Yemen.
“While he was talking about Saddam he looked at one of the guards, and told him: ‘Don’t worry, I am talking about my son, not him’,” Zainab said.
He also asked about his six grandchildren and Wisam, Zainab’s husband, who reached Amman seven months ago after being kidnapped by unknown gunmen.
Mr Aziz said that his food and medical treatment were adequate but complained that he had received none of the parcels containing Cuban cigars, cigarettes, dates and powdered milk that his family had sent to him through the International Red Cross.
The mail was little better, his wife said. His family only recently received a letter sent in May as a reply to one he had just received that was sent last December.
Zainab said: “There was hardly any time to talk about details of his life in jail, of the other inmates or of politics in Iraq . . . the meeting passed so quick. But he asked if it was true that a new constitution for Iraq was being drafted.”
Mrs Aziz said: “He kept assuring us we need not worry about him because he is innocent and his hands are clean, provided he gets a free and fair trial. Throughout his career he only dealt with foreign affairs and had nothing to do with domestic policies.”
Her husband is being questioned over atrocities in Iraq before the invasion, including Saddam’s crushing of a Shia uprising in 1991.
Supporters say that Mr Aziz is a political prisoner who did his best to restrain Saddam but opponents have little sympathy for the man.
Indict, the committee that is seeking to prosecute the Iraqi leadership, says that he was a member of Saddam’s Revolutionary Command Council and was therefore complicit in genocide and war crimes against Iran, Kuwait and his own people.
‘AMERICAN SOLDIERS ARE NOTHING BUT MERCENARIES AND THEY WILL BE DEFEATED’
“Do you expect me, after all my history as a militant and as one of the Iraqi leaders, to go to an American prison — to go to Guantanamo? I would rather die.” Speaking to reporters weeks before the invasion of Iraq. He surrendered on April 24, 2003.
“(If the Americans) have come to initiate a war here, I think they will be sorry for that, because they will lose that war, and they will be defeated.” Interview in the build-up to the Gulf War.
“The American Administration is preparing the ground for its war of aggression. If the American Government commits that crime it will be the gravest crime in its history and in the history of the world. If Bush attacks, a grave disaster will take place, not only regarding the region but regarding the whole world.” Speaking in Amman in August 1990.
“It will be a bloody conflict and America will lose. It will be humiliating.”
“I am carrying my pistol to confirm to you that we are ready to fight the aggressors . . . American soldiers are nothing but mercenaries and they will be defeated.” March 19, 2003.
“I offer my deepest sympathy to you, and through you, to the victims’ families. Our sympathy over this event goes hand in hand with what we feel in Iraq about the tragedies inflicted on our people in the course of 12 years of continuous aggression and UN sanctions.” Letter sent after September 11, 2001, to Ramsey Clark, the former US Attorney-General.
My tears are shed for you and your family.....NOT
****He looked like he had turned 80,” his wife, Violette, told The Times. “He was frail and too tired to walk, even inside the small meeting room. He had to lean against his American military escort to move a step down.
“Much of his thick hair and moustache had shed and greyed,” she added, tears running down her cheeks. ****
Sounds great to me.
Just hang these waste of skins and be done with it.
Like Baggy Dad Bob, he was a good talker. He had to know about the Butchery, he is an accessory to the crimes by association.
What... we didn't behead him??? Oh that's right we are Americans.
From March:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1353656/posts
"...Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, denied any wrongdoing under the programme and refused to answer some of the questions posed to him by the investigators, Izzat said, without providing further details.
"Some of the information that emerged is very dangerous and involves people that are currently in power and I have to think about the interest of my client in making this public," said Izzat. ..."
What people are "currently in power" Aziz is scared of. Assad? Putin? Chirac?
Oh, so much that could be said, and so little bandwidth. I'll just mention that if he is so frail, it is probably a good thing that the Cuban cigars and cigarettes are not reaching him.
He didn't actually drop anyone into a shredder himself, so he has nothing to fear for his years of service to men who did.
This guy needs to swing right alongside Saddam.
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