Saddam

Guardian
24 February 1998

Misguided missiles of peace
by Linda Grant

A renewed war with Iraq has been narrowly averted, prompting Grant to explore the conflict, particularly with respect to Farzad Barzoft, an Observer journalist executed by Saddam in 1990, shortly before the outbreak of war. Grant highlights how Irac's status as a 'valuable trading partner' of Britain caused suppression of the story and smear stories mysteriously appeared in The Sun about Barzoft. When Irac invaded Kuwait, Saddam immediately became the psychopathic bully-boy guilty of genocide - using bio and chemical weapons against his own people. Whilst being 'utterly cynical' about the intentions of the West, Grant asserts that it would be an insult to the memory to assume that Irac is the injured party, concluding that it is not wicked to want to rid the world of a genocidal dictator.