Saddam Hussein’s former foreign minister Tariq Aziz has been sentenced to die for his role in the former Baathist government. Aziz was probably the best known figure inside Iraq outside of Saddam. He speaks perfect English and was used as the public face of the regime for Saddam’s entire tenure.

Aziz’s real name is Michael Yuhanna and he’s a Catholic not a Muslim. Yuhanna changed his name to Aziz so as not to offend the rest of Saddam’s inner circle who were all Muslims.

I used to think Aziz would probably be let go eventually since he doesn’t have any blood on his hands directly. But then I considered how I would feel about a mouthpiece for the Nazis and I changed my mind. Aziz has never once expressed an ounce of remorse for giving full throated support to Saddam’s barbaric regime. Even now facing no reprisals he remains defiant. Even with Saddam dead he continues to deny the dictator’s guilt in well known atrocities.

So Tariq Aziz will be hanged in the coming weeks just like the majority of his former colleagues were. Excuse me if I don’t shed a tear.

The FBI has released the interviews it conducted with Saddam Hussein before his execution.

The declassified reports detail 20 interviews and 5 “casual conversations” that make for fascinating reading.

After that, enjoy a replay of Saddam’s execution:

The Pentagon has released excerpts of Saddam Hussein’s diary that he wrote in daily while being held in an American detention facility in Iraq.

According to his writings, Saddam feared catching AIDS when he discovered that his U.S. military guards sometimes used his clothes line to dry their clothes.

When Saddam found out his U.S. military guards were also using his laundry line to dry clothes, he wrote that he demanded they stop, according to the excerpts.

“I explained to them that they are young and they could have young people’s diseases,” Saddam wrote. “My main concern was to not catch a venereal disease, an HIV disease, in this place.” He said some soldiers ignored his request.

Obviously, Saddam was about 20 years behind in common knowledge about AIDS since he thought it could be transmitted via clothes line.

Also, it’s not like we were gonna let him live long enough to catch anything anyway.

Anyone who’s watched news coverage about Iraq over the last 25 years or so has probably seen Tariq Aziz. He was a part of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle from the first day the dictator took power. However, unlike ‘Chemical Ali’ and the rest of Saddam’s henchman, Aziz was never a strong man for the regime.

He was more or less the public face of Saddam’s Iraq. He was the one who spoke for Iraq at the UN and traveled to America for diplomatic meetings. Charges against Aziz stem from the murder of 42 merchants by Saddam’s regime, killed because Saddam thought they were apart of a conspiracy to raise food prices at a time when Iraq was under strict sanctions as a result of the 1991 Gulf War.

Iraqi prosecutors claim that Aziz had complicity in the murders, because as a member of Saddam’s Revolutionary Command Council his signature was on the execution orders. Though his signature was on the certificates it’s worth mentioning that Aziz had no choice but to sign the orders.

Even though his role in the regime was a diplomatic one, as a member of Saddam’s inner circle his signature being on the execution orders was more a formality than anything else. Had he not signed the papers, he would have been the next one to be executed.

Aziz is a devout catholic, and the only known Christian to have ever served in the former Iraqi government. I believe all of Saddam’s top henchman deserved to be hanged without a doubt, but I do have some reservations about Tariq Aziz.

If found guilty by the Iraqi courts he will be hanged like Saddam and the rest of his thugs, but I’m not sure death is the appropriate way to deal with Mr. Aziz. Since he had a purely diplomatic role in the regime, the new Iraqi government could use his trial as a way to give the new courts added legitimacy by showing mercy in this instance.

The man is 72 years old and has already suffered a stroke, so he probably won’t live that much longer anyway. So even if he were given only a 5-10 prison sentence, it’s doubtful that he would survive but it would show the Iraqi people that the new court system is fair and just.

That said, I think it’s understandable if the court feels that by going along with Saddam’s mass murder he made himself complicit in the acts. That was the same standard by which the U.S. held Nazi war criminals to after WWII, so that’s certainly a valid argument to make.

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

-Chris Jones

In an effort to remove the last remaining traces of Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime, the Iraqi Parliament today adopted a new national flag.

The new flag will keep the same colors, but will no longer feature the three stars that symbolized the Baathist ideals of unity, freedom, and socialism, and Saddam Hussein’s handwritten calligraphy of the Koranic incantation “Allah u Akbar.”

The incantation, which means God is great, will remain on the flag, though it will now be written in the Kufic calligraphic style of ancient Mesopotamia.

-Samantha Giles

Small groups of mourners have gathered at the grave of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to mark the first anniversary of his execution.

Saddam loyalists visited his grave in Ouja, the deposed dictator’s birthplace. Walls in the nearby city of Tikrit were marked by fresh graffiti honoring the dead leader.

The U.S. military says it has not noted any increase in violence attributed to the anniversary.

A new book tells among other things the story of the FBI agent who spent seven hours a day everyday for a year with Saddam Hussein after his capture. They drank coffee, smoked cigars, and talked about everything. FBI Special Agent George Piro says Saddam even cried on their last meeting before his execution.

Saddam admitted that he bluffed the U.S. about his weapons capabilities in hopes of scaring Iran. He didn’t think the Bush Administration would actually attack him. He also told the agent outright that his plan was to wait until the UN sanctions were eventually lifted, and then reconstitute his nuclear program.

Surprisingly, Saddam never used body doubles – as was widely believed – because no one could “play” him, Piro quoted Saddam as saying.

To find out more you’ll have to read “The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack.”

-Chris Jones