Tariq Aziz

Uncommon card · No. 113383

Tariq Aziz (Syriac: ܛܐܪܩ ܥܙܝܙ, Arabic: طارق عزيز Ṭāriq ʿAzīz, 28 April 1936 – 5 June 2015) was an Iraqi politician and journalist who served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq from 1979 to 2003 and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1983 to 1991. He was a close advisor of President Saddam Hussein. Additionally, Aziz was a member of the Revolutionary Command Council and the Regional Command of the Iraqi Branch of the Ba'ath Party. His association with Saddam began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. Due to security concerns, Saddam rarely left Iraq, so Aziz would often be Iraq's highest-level representative at international and diplomatic summits. In the year prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Aziz said that the United States did not want "regime change" in Iraq but rather "region change". He said that the Bush administration's reasons for war were "oil and Israel". After surrendering to American forces on 24 April 2003, Aziz was held in...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Presidential Press and Information Office, CC BY 4.0