 DAMASCUS - Onetime Iraqi information minister Saad Kassem Hammudi, one of the leading Shias in Saddam HusseinÂ’s Sunni Arab-dominated regime, has died in exile in Damascus, official media said on Sunday. He died of a heart attack on Saturday and was buried on Sunday in the Najha cemetery south of the Syrian capital, the official SANA news agency said.
| Exile in Damascus, eh. Just another reason why we should clean out the Assad regime. |
Scion of a family of Shia clerics, Hammudi was a founding member of SaddamÂ’s now disbanded Baath party, joining it before the growing domination of Sunnis loyal to the now executed strongman overshadowed the partyÂ’s secular, non-sectarian ideology.
Hammmudi edited the state daily Al Jumhuriya before being appointed disinformation minister in 1977. On the eve of the US-led invasion of 2003, he served as chairman of the foreign and Arab affairs committee of the Iraqi parliament. At a conference in Damascus the previous December to show solidarity with Saddam’s regime in the face of US war preparations, Hammudi warned: ‘If the United States invades Iraq, we will fight back in a way that will win admiration.’
| That worked well, didn't it. |
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