Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein is spending his time in solitary confinement writing poetry, gardening, reading the Muslim holy book and snacking on muffins. He even wrote a poem about US President George W. Bush.
The intriguing glimpse of the former dictator's daily routine as he awaits trial on war crimes and genocide charges was given yesterday by Iraq's human rights minister, Bakhtiar Amin, who visited Saddam in detention on Saturday.
Amin, an Iraqi human rights campaigner whose family had lost members to killings by the former regime, said he could not bring himself to speak to Saddam but observed that he was "in good health and being kept in good conditions."
Yet he said the ex-president "appeared demoralized and dejected."
Saddam is being held in a 3m-by-4m white-walled air-conditioned cell, Amin said. He is kept apart from the other prisoners, who can mix with each other during the daily three-hour exercise periods.
Saddam has been reading the Qu'ran and writing poetry, Amin said. "One of the poems is about George Bush, but I had no time to read it."
Saddam's health was "generally good" but he was being treated for high blood pressure and had suffered a chronic prostate infection for which he had received antibiotics. The former president had refused a biopsy to test for signs of cancer.
Amin said Saddam "was regaining weight again" after a self- imposed diet in which he "resisted all fatty foods" and had lost about 5 kg. Like the other high-value detainees, Saddam's day begins with a substantial breakfast that provides 1,300 calories. He also gets hot food twice a day. The former leader has developed a penchant for American snacks such as muffins and cookies.
For relaxation there are no newspapers, TV or radio, but there are 145 from the Red Cross, which visits detainees every six weeks.
"He is looking after a few bushes and shrubs, and has even placed a circle of white stones around a small palm tree," said Amin, who is the first member of Iraq's new interim government to visit Saddam. "His apparent care for his surroundings is ironic when you think he was responsible for one of the biggest ecocides when he drained the southern marshes."
On July 1, Saddam and 11 other ex-officials were arraigned in a Baghdad courtroom on charges that include killing rivals, gassing Kurds, invading Kuwait and suppressing Kurdish and Shi'ite uprisings.
Amin said the prisoners were technically under Iraqi jurisdiction but would remain at the US military prison until Iraqi authorities are ready to take custody of them.
US and Iraqi officials have said that Saddam has not provided much information during interrogation, but some of his aides have. They include Ali Hassan al-Majid, who reportedly ordered chemical weapons to be used against Kurds; Saddam's half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti; and his secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti.
Amin insisted: "There will be a just trial and a fair trial, unlike the trials that he [Saddam] inflicted on his enemies, on the Iraqi people."
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
RSS