Saddam

by Con Coughlin

Saddam expressed his admiration for Stalin on numerous occasions and describes him as not being a communist but a nationalist. And I think Saddam was trained by the KGB, which accounts in part for why he was able to run his country so brutally. His book came out shortly before the war began and it was arguably one of the best-timed biographies of the century. If you were in Baghdad you would see all manner of people carrying copies of it. The American soldiers had it, the foreign civilian officials working with the US administration had it, all the journalists had it, and quite a lot of Iraqis were interested in getting copies.