Posted 10:59 PM by Blah blah

Saddam: Dead or Alive? Saddam's Favorite Mistress for Over 30 Years

Photos: Photo 1 and photo 2 of Parisoula Lampsos, his favorite mistress.

U.S. Officials: Saddam Seen on Stretcher After March 19 Strike (Fox News): "Saddam Hussein is seen being placed on a stretcher and into an ambulance in photographs in the possession of the U.S. government showing what is described as 'panicked digging' at the bunker/command-and-control facility that was struck in the first strike of the war March 19, U.S. officials told Fox News late Friday. Bodies are seen as they are removed, and these officials are confident that Saddam was seen being placed upon a stretcher."

‘Chemical Ali’ Dead? Three Key Iraqi Leaders Believed Killed; Explosions Shake Baghdad (ABC News): "ABCNEWS' Brian Ross reported that the three critical Iraqi officials — Taha Yasin Ramadan, Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, and Ali Hassan Majid, known as Chemical Ali — are believed to have died in Wednesday night's 'decapitation attack,' the opening salvo of the war. 'Chemical Ali,' Saddam's cousin and a key general and governor of southern Iraq, earned his chilling nickname by using chemical weapons to suppress a Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq in the late 1980s, killing thousands....

Earlier today, U.S. intelligence sources told ABCNEWS that witnesses at the site of a Baghdad suburban residential complex told U.S. intelligence officials that Saddam was observed being taken from the bombed complex on a stretcher, with an oxygen mask over his face, on Thursday before dawn local time.

At a news briefing in Baghdad today, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said the first U.S. airstrikes had hit one of Saddam's homes, but he said the Iraqi leader had survived and was safe. But U.S. intelligence sources said there had been a significant lack of communication from the Iraqi leader to his government and military structure since the bombing."

U.S. Thinks Hussein, Sons Were In Bunker (Washington Post): "A third administration official said 'there is evidence that he [Hussein] was at least injured' because of indications that medical attention was urgently summoned on his behalf. The condition of Hussein's sons, and any others who may have been at the compound, was also unknown, officials said....

But the government also consulted Parisoula Lampsos, who the Defense Department believes has passed a polygraph examination in support of her claim that she was Hussein's mistress in Iraq for many years. Lampsos has previously distinguished Hussein from his doubles in more than a dozen cases, one official said, and this time she said he was not the man in the broadcast."

March 21, 2003: Portrait of a megalomaniac (Scripps Howard).

Some fascinating old news.

Sept. 8, 2002
Terror of tyrant's mistress in gilded prison (The Guardian): "He called her 'Shaqraa' - the blonde. When she married another man after their youthful fling, he had her husband thrown into prison and his assets seized. His son raped her daughter when she was 15. Now, after a terrifying escape from Baghdad and months in hiding, Saddam Hussein's on-off mistress for more than 30 years has finally broken her silence. In 13 hours of videotaped interviews conducted by her rescuers, the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), Shaqraa describes life in her gilded prison, a private villa in the grounds of Saddam's presidential palace. Plied with cars, jewels and designer clothes, she lived in a world where women were treated as mere possessions. Now in her early fifties, she seems vivacious on the tapes, with more than a trace of the youthful beauty which made her a burning sexual obsession for Saddam."

Sept. 12, 2002
Defector Says She Was Saddam’s Mistress (ABC News): "A woman who says she was Saddam Hussein's mistress describes a Viagra-fueled lover who enjoyed watching The Godfather and tapes of his enemies being tortured — but cried as the allies took Kuwait from Iraqi occupation during the Gulf War....Parisoula [Lampsos] said she was part of what she calls Saddam's 'collection' of women, which she said included three wives and over the years five other mistresses. She said she was his favorite mistress, and was friendly with his wives."

May 2002: Tales of the Tyrant (The Atlantic). Excellent, detailed profile of Saddam. Intimate details of his daily life: "The tyrant must steal sleep. He must vary the locations and times. He never sleeps in his palaces. He moves from secret bed to secret bed. Sleep and a fixed routine are among the few luxuries denied him. It is too dangerous to be predictable, and whenever he shuts his eyes, the nation drifts. His iron grip slackens. Plots congeal in the shadows. For those hours he must trust someone, and nothing is more dangerous to the tyrant than trust."

Oct. 23, 2001
You’ve Got Mail — From Saddam: American Swaps E-mail With Iraqi Leader (ABC News): "Christopher Love was familiar with the democratizing power of the Internet, but nothing could have prepared him for the shock he received when he logged onto his e-mail at work late last week." This was after the Sept. 11th attacks. Here's the 10-page long email Saddam sent him!