Word: majid
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Hammadi, formerly deputy PM, is a Shi'ite and, within the context of the ruling Baath Party, is considered a moderate. But the changes are unlikely to convince the Iraqi masses that the regime has truly turned over a new leaf, especially since the ironhanded Interior Minister, Ali Hassan Majid, has kept his job. "The Cabinet is window dressing," says a U.S. government expert on Iraq. "It doesn't make any decisions anyway...
...meanest man in Iraq? Those who think it is Saddam Hussein may want to change their opinion. Saddam's new Interior Minister, his paternal cousin Ali Hassan Majid, is as pitiless as they come -- "a total brute," as a British diplomat describes...
Born in 1940 in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, Majid began his career in the Baath Party's internal-security branch, whimsically called the Instrument of Yearning. Its reputation for rough torture made it the most feared organization in Iraq. Grateful for Majid's help in ridding him of Baathist rivals, Saddam made him Minister of Municipalities. But his real job was to be Saddam's No. 1 enforcer...
When Saddam was casting about for someone to put down the worst rebellion he has ever faced, he needed to look no farther than his own family. Cousin Majid ordered a poison-gas attack on restive Kurds in 1988, killing 5,000 and earning him the nickname "the butcher of Kurdistan." Last September, Majid, who like Saddam has a limited education and little sophistication about the outside world, was made governor of occupied Kuwait so that he would suppress the resistance. He was responsible for the summary execution of its members and the abduction of an estimated 2,000 Kuwaitis...
...same time, Saddam showed that he was as ready as ever to clamp down hard on his restive populace. He fired his Interior Minister and replaced him with a cousin, Ali Hassan Majid, who not only served as the governor of occupied Kuwait during Iraq's rape of the country but also allegedly supervised the gassing of rebellious Kurds in Halabja in 1988, killing 5,000. Baghdad also expelled all foreign journalists from the country, perhaps to eliminate witnesses to a coming bloodbath. Opposition leaders were terrified that Saddam would use chemical weapons against his own people once again...