"The authorities came to find my parents in the middle of the night - they suspected my father of being involved in the opposition. My uncle pretended to be my father to give him time to run away. My father was taken to the Iranian border by a friend while my mother was driven to Sulaymaniyah, northern Iraq. She was hiding in a small village when she gave birth to me in August 1980. She later fled with me to Syria with fake documents, before coming to Britain.
When Saddam's men come after one person they hunt the whole family. My mother's sister and her family were also suspected of supporting the opposition. In Iraq, mere suspicion of something is enough to get you taken in for questioning. Reports from people released from prison say they saw the authorities burning my two-year-old cousin alive in front of her parents to get them to talk. As they refused my aunt was raped in front of my uncle and executed. Eventually my uncle was also executed. My grandparents managed to hide their one-year-old son; he was later smuggled to Iran."
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"In terms of what kind of economic system they wish to establish, as you point out, the Ba'athist Party was a socialist party. I think it's very hard to imagine any strong support in this country for a return to that economic system, which has left the country really flat on its back, and which does not really provide a model for getting the kind of vibrant private sector which I think most Iraqis now realize is a sine qua non for a stable economy and stable economic growth. So if they choose socialism, that will be their business. My guess is that's not going to happen." ~ Amb. Paul Bremer - Briefing on Coalition Post-war Reconstruction and Stabilization Efforts ~ 6/12