Iraq’s Tariq Aziz Was Sorry When Saddam Hanged, Calls Kurdish Leaders ‘Friends’

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region  - Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein’s right-hand men, says he was sorry when his old boss was hanged in 2006, that the current Shiite premier has weakened Iraq and that he still regards two of the country’s most influential Kurdish leaders as “friends.”

In an interview with the Dubai based Al Arabiya television Aziz, the international face of Saddam’s regime as foreign minister for eight years, and prime minister when Saddam was ousted in the 2003 US-led invasion, kept repeating, “I wish things were better.”

Aziz, an articulate Christian fluent in English, who was among Saddam’s top men until the end, is himself awaiting execution in prison since being sentenced to death in 2010.

Asked about Saddam’s mistakes, which included the devastating 1980-88 war with Iran, his daft 1990 invasion of Kuwait that began his downfall and the brutal crackdowns on Iraq’s large minority Kurds that is increasingly being recognized internationally as “genocide,” Aziz said that Saddam alone was not to blame for mistakes.

Commenting on Iraq’s current leaders, Aziz said, “Some of them I do not even know.”  Asked about the Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has managed to alienate both the country’s large minority Kurds and Sunnis, as well as some Shiite groups, Aziz replied, “Iraq is weak now.”

But he said about Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, and President Massoud Barzani, who heads the autonomous Kurdistan Region in the north, “They are both my friends.” 

Both Kurdish leaders fought a lifelong battle against Saddam’s many efforts to exterminate Iraq’s Kurds, who number an estimated five million, and have their own non-Arab ethnicity, language and culture.

Regarding Saddam’s execution, Aziz said that, “As a human being, who lived with him, I was saddened by his execution.”

Aziz believes the during Saddam’s trial, the tone of the proceeding changed, depending on the judges.  He said, for expample, Kurdish judge Rizgar Hamadameen was softer on Saddam, but another Kurdish judge, Rauf Rasheed, hated Saddam and was after “revenge.”

He added that, Barzani was a patriot, and that Aziz did not like the regional president’s stance on Kurdish autonomy. The Kurdistan Region has its own president, parliament, laws and military, and Baghdad fears that the oil-rich enclave would one day opt for independence.

“I do not like Barzani’s decision about self-determination,” Aziz told the interviewer.