Mikhail Yuhanna, (Arabic: ميخائيل يوحنا, Mīḫāʾīl Yūḥannā) later and more popularly known as Tariq Aziz or Tareq Aziz, (Arabic: طارق عزيز, Ṭāriq ʿAzīz; Syriac: ܜܪܩ ܥܙܝܙ) (born April 28, 1936 in Tel Keppe) was the Foreign Minister (1983 – 1991) and Deputy Prime Minister (1979 – 2003) of Iraq, and a close advisor of former President Saddam Hussein for decades. Their association began in the 1950s, when both were Ba'ath party activists, while the p...
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Mikhail Yuhanna, (Arabic: ميخائيل يوحنا, Mīḫāʾīl Yūḥannā) later and more popularly known as Tariq Aziz or Tareq Aziz, (Arabic: طارق عزيز, Ṭāriq ʿAzīz; Syriac: ܜܪܩ ܥܙܝܙ) (born April 28, 1936 in Tel Keppe) was the Foreign Minister (1983 – 1991) and Deputy Prime Minister (1979 – 2003) of Iraq, and a close advisor of former President Saddam Hussein for decades. Their association began in the 1950s, when both were Ba'ath party activists, while the party was still officially banned.
Since Saddam Hussein was both Prime Minister and President of Iraq, Aziz often played the role of Iraq's de facto head of government. Because of security concerns, Hussein rarely left Iraq, and Aziz in turn would often represent Iraq at high-level diplomatic summits. What the United States wanted, he averred, was not "regime change" in Iraq but rather "region change". He summed up the Bush Administration's reasons for war against Iraq tersely: "oil and Israel."
Aziz is currently in prison in Camp Cropper in...
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