Tariq Aziz suffers severe stroke

[demoleft]

Source: al jazeera

Tariq Aziz, Iraq's former deputy prime minister, has been hospitalised after suffering a severe stroke.

Ziad, Tariq Aziz's son, said on Sunday that his father had lost the ability to speak after falling ill on Friday.

He was rushed to a hospital in Balad, north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad on Thursday.
...
"His condition is serious and they will decide today whether he stays in hospital or should be returned to Camp Cropper," Aref told the AFP news agency, referring to a US-run prison where Aziz has been detained.

Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/01/201011714322816288.html

[Lerkfish]

1. am I the only one who finds this part incredibly convenient?

"his father had lost the ability to speak"

[NJCher]

3. or incredibly ironic

:)


Cher

[Freddie Stubbs]

4. Convenient for whom?

:shrug:

[Lerkfish]

5. nope, my bad

I was thinking of another person, my mistake and my apologies.

[niyad]

2. weird, I was just thinking about him the other day.

[Rozlee]

6. I have a very misguided sister who is a hard right Conservative

and who told me that Saddam had killed off all the Christians in Iraq. She is still very skeptical of my claim that Aziz is a Christian and would have been in line for the assencion to power in the case of Saddam's assassination during his reign. Well, maybe not. His people probably wouldn't have tolerated it. But, my sister recently also told me that Michelle's mother was a secret follower of Voodoo and the WH was keeping it a deep secret. So, a Christian who was a Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq isn't a fact. But, a mother-in-law who is a Voodoo priestess is. Gotta love Conservatives. But, only when they're related. Sorry that I got off topic. But, I had to vent.

[PacerLJ35]

10. Aziz is Chaldean...nt

[lunatica]

7. I wonder if it's related to Chemical Ali being sentenced to death

http://blog.taragana.com/law/2010/01/17/iraqs-chemical-ali-sentenced-to-death-19591/

BAGHDAD - An Iraqi court Sunday sentenced former senior Iraqi official Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as “Chemical Ali”, to death for his role in the 1988 massacre in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja.

Around five thousand were killed by poison gas in Halabja, while an estimated 100,000 Kurds were killed in the Anfal campaign against Iraq’s Kurds.

Iraq’s Supreme Criminal Court also sentenced Farhan Motalk al-Juburi, the former chief of intelligence in the northern zone, to 10 years in jail, the Aswat al-Iraq news agency reported.

Former Minister of Defence Sultan Hashim Ahmed, and Saber Abdulaziz al-Dori, the former chief of military intelligence during the Halabja campaign, were given 15-year sentences.

Al-Majid, who was listed as the fifth most-wanted man in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003, was captured in August of that year. He earned the name “Chemical Ali” for his use of poison gas against the Kurdish villagers during the Anfal campaign.

The former intelligence chief and defence minister has been sentenced to death more than once before for crimes committed while in office. In March, he was sentenced to death for the 1999 crackdown on Shiite Iraqis.

[Gman2]

8. Lets waterboard him till he talks.

[Ter]

9. Although I admit I don't know all that much about him

I always thought he was the only sane one in that administration. Get well soon.

[RZM]

12. Wow . . .

'Get well soon?' Don't get me wrong, I don't rejoice in strokes or anything, but c'mon. Aziz was the international public face of Saddam's regime. I don't think he wielded much real power on the inside and there were far worse people working in that government, but he can nonetheless be considered a complicit participant in the regime's activities -- it was his job to justify everything. It's not my place to say exactly what he 'deserves' for his activities, but I don't think a whole lot of sympathy is in order, particularly from anybody that is concerned with human rights issues (not trying to characterize you personally or anything, though most people at DU are pretty pro-human rights).

[jasi2006]

11. Aziz is a Christian. He was a very creditable spokesperson for Iraq.

Saddam gave him the freedom to express the Iraqi position and he did so honestly to the best of his ability. Even our media liked him. We didn't listen to him when he told us that Iraq had no WMDs, that they had been destroyed and accounted for in the report Iraq gave to the inspectors that was heavily redacted by the Bush administration, criticized and propagandized beyond recognition. Azia also tried in vain to dispute the incubator lies circulating by our media and neocons. He was a gracious diplomat no matter what they try to say about him now.