Tariq Aziz

These Americans are cowards, because if they were courageous, they would have confronted us face-to-face, rather than coming at us from behind

Tariq Aziz (April 28, 1936 - June 5, 2015) was Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister (1979–2003) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (Iraq) (1983–1991) and a close advisor of President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. An ethnic Assyrian, he was both an Arab nationalist and a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church. He was sentenced to death by the Iraqi High Tribunal on October 26, 2010 for persecuting Islamic Parties. He died of a heart attack in custody at the age of 79.

Quotes

• These Americans are cowards, because if they were courageous, they would have confronted us face-to-face, rather than coming at us from behind
  • attributed to Tareq Aziz in a July, 2007 interview with former Iraqi press secretary Abd Al-Jabbar Muhsen

• I'm a victim of a criminal act conducted by this party, which is in power right now. So put it on trial. Its leader was the prime minister and his deputy is the prime minister right now and they killed innocent Iraqis in 1980
  • Referring to the Dawa Party that is now a party in the Shiite coalition. "Aziz takes stand for Saddam", The Scotsman, Thu 25 May 2006

• 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
  • Before the Invasion of Iraq, BBC News (April 24, 2003), "Tariq Aziz in U.S. Custody; New York Moves Closer to Rebuilding at Ground Zero".

• I'm a victim of a criminal act conducted by this party, which is in power right now. So put it on trial. Its leader was the prime minister and his deputy is the prime minister right now and they killed innocent Iraqis in 1980,
  • About the Dujail Attack, wcbstv.com (May 24, 2006), "Takes Stand In Saddam Trial"

• The Dujail case is part of a chain of assassination operations against officials and I am one of the victims, the president of the state in any country, if faced with an assassination attempt, should take procedures to punish those who conduct and help this operation. According to the law, people who support this assassination can also be convicted.
  • BBC News (May 24, 2006), "Aziz testifies for Saddam defence"

• It is imperative that there is intervention into our dire situation and treatment ... We hope that you will help us. We have been in prison for a long time and we have been cut from our families. No contacts, no phones, no letters. Even the parcels sent to us by our families are not given to us. We need a fair treatment, a fair investigation and finally a fair trial. Please help us
  • British newspaper, The Observer, published letters in Arabic and English addressing to "world public opinion", pleading for international help to end "his dire situation", The Guardian (May 28, 2005), "The extraordinary pleas of Saddam's right-hand man"

About

• He didn't move. He couldn't talk. He didn't say a word to her. He just looked at her. It is so sad that he had to go this way
  • Daughter of Tariq Aziz, Zenaib Aziz, referring to death of Tariq Aziz... mentioned on BBC News (June 5, 2015), "Tariq Aziz, ex-Saddam Hussein aide, dies after heart attack"

• I suppose I can just about bear to watch the “inspections” pantomime a second time. But what I cannot bear is the sight of French and Russian diplomats posing and smirking with Naji Sabry, Iraq’s foreign minister, or with Tariq Aziz. I used to know Naji and I know that two of his brothers, Mohammed and Shukri, were imprisoned and tortured by Saddam Hussein–in Mohammed’s case, tortured to death. The son of Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was sentenced to twenty-two years of imprisonment last year; he has since been released and rearrested and released again, partly no doubt to show who is in charge. Another former friend of mine, Mazen Zahawi, was Saddam Hussein’s interpreter until shortly after the Gulf War, when he was foully murdered and then denounced as a homosexual. I have known many regimes where stories of murder and disappearance are the common talk among the opposition; the Iraqi despotism is salient in that such horrors are also routine among its functionaries. Saddam Hussein likes to use as envoys the men he has morally destroyed; men who are sick with fear and humiliation, and whose families are hostages.
  • Christopher Hitchens, "Taking Sides," 26 September 2002, The Nation

External links

• Tariq Aziz
• "Call to free Iraq's Tariq Aziz". BBC News. 24 December 2007.