Tariq Aziz Sentenced to Hang

"The inspectors will find that all the talk of Iraq stockpiling weapons of mass destruction is simply a lie, and put by Bush and Blair as a pretext for staging a war."
- Tariq Aziz, New York Times, October 22, 2002

In an interview with the British Guardian newspaper earlier this year, Aziz said the U.S. invasion of Iraq had "killed" his homeland.
- Former Iraqi Foreign Minister to Hang, VOA News, October 26, 2010


The U.S.-led war against Iraq will soon be twenty years old. Those who remember the lead-up to the war in the summer of 1990 will certainly remember the face and words of Tariq Aziz, then foreign minister of Iraq. His was a voice of reason and intelligence that sought to avoid the war that led to the destruction of Iraq - and hundreds of thousands of lives. Today, just a few days after the release of hundreds of thousands of documents that detail a very long list of war crimes committed by U.S. forces and their army of Iraqi quislings, Tariq Aziz was sentenced to death. This is a very black day for Iraq and the Iraqi people.

Mikhail Yuhanna, more widely known as Tariq Aziz, was Iraq’s Christian foreign minister when President George H.W. Bush began the Zionist-designed war against Iraq in 1991. Today, Aziz was sentenced to die by hanging.

Aziz, an Assyrian and Chaldean Catholic, (born April 28, 1936) has served as Iraq’s Foreign Minister (1983 – 1991) and Deputy Prime Minister (1979 – 2003). He was a close advisor of former President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party.


What the United States wanted in 2002, he said, 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"

''North Korea has admitted to having a secret nuclear program. The United States is not asking that North Korea be inspected in the way they are asking for Iraq to be inspected. Why? Because there are two things absent in North Korea: oil and Israel. The reason for this warmongering policy toward Iraq is oil and Israel.''

''The inspectors will find that all the talk of Iraq stockpiling weapons of mass destruction is simply a lie, and put by Bush and Blair as a pretext for staging a war.”

Mr. Aziz, a Chaldean Christian, compared Mr. Hussein's decision to the forgiveness shown by Jesus toward the Roman centurions who crucified him.

''That's our way of dealing with the people,'' he said. ''If you are a good Muslim or a good Christian, you will pardon. Aren't you a believer? Jesus Christ pardoned those who crucified, then executed, him.''

''Let them do it, if they can,'' he said. ''Invade Iraq, because at that time the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi leadership and the Iraqi people will fight to the last bullet, and it will be very costly. We are a proud nation, and we are not going to bow down in front of the new tyrants of the world.''

As for suggestions by President Bush and other American officials that American troops would be cheered by crowds if they entered Baghdad, Mr. Aziz gave a mocking laugh.

''Isn't this arrogance?'' he said. ''Are they being cheered in Afghanistan? They are deceiving themselves and the whole American nation. America is taking over the world, you see, and an American soldier is not going to be cheered when he enters our country -- he is going to be killed.''
- Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, New York Times, October 22, 2002

Sources:
“Former Iraqi Foreign Minister to Hang”, VOANews.com, October 26, 2010
www.voanews.com/english/news/Former-Iraqi-Foreign-Minister-to-Hang-105755578.html

“Threats and Responses, Baghdad’s View; Citing North Korea, an Iraqi Aide Says 'Oil and Israel,' Not Weapons, Spur the U.S.” by John F. Burns, New York Times, October 22, 2002
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60C12F83D580C718EDDA90994DA404482&n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes+Topics%2FPeople%2FA%2FAziz%2C+Tariq&pagewanted=all

Source: www.bollyn.com/tariz-aziz-sentenced-to-hang

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Last updated 31/10/2010

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