Tariq Aziz

Tariq Aziz, who once represented Saddam Hussein's Iraq to the world, was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for his involvement in the 1992 killing of 42 merchants accused of price-fixing. The court found Aziz guilty of premeditated murder and crimes against humanity. It was the first conviction for the onetime foreign minister and deputy prime minister; last week the Iraqi High Tribunal dismissed charges against him regarding Hussein's crushing of a 1999 Shiite Muslim revolt.

The United States has handed over 29 members of Saddam Hussein's government to Iraqi custody in recent weeks, including Tariq Aziz, the urbane, cigar-chomping official who served as the regime's global spokesman, Iraqi officials and Aziz's relatives said Wednesday. The U.S. military confirmed that it transferred 26 former regime officials Monday and three others last month. It added that it continued to hold eight high-ranking members of Hussein's government and his ruling Baath Party.

The United States has handed over 29 members of Saddam Hussein's government to Iraqi custody in recent weeks, including Tariq Aziz, the urbane, cigar-chomping official who served as the regime's global spokesman, Iraqi officials and Aziz's relatives said Wednesday. The U.S. military confirmed that it transferred 26 former regime officials Monday and three others last month. It added that it continued to hold eight high-ranking members of Hussein's government and his ruling Baath Party.

Tariq Aziz, who once represented Saddam Hussein's Iraq to the world, was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for his involvement in the 1992 killing of 42 merchants accused of price-fixing. The court found Aziz guilty of premeditated murder and crimes against humanity. It was the first conviction for the onetime foreign minister and deputy prime minister; last week the Iraqi High Tribunal dismissed charges against him regarding Hussein's crushing of a 1999 Shiite Muslim revolt.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati will go to the Soviet Union on Friday--two days before his Iraqi counterpart, Tariq Aziz--for talks on the war with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

In the smoke-filled rooms of backroom politics here, it was only natural that a cigar case with a storied past would become convenient fodder for scandal.

Oil prices fell Tuesday after Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said his country was prepared to allow United Nations weapons inspections, a development seen as reducing the threat of a U.S. attack on the Middle East's fourth-biggest producer. Aziz told U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Iraq would allow access to arms sites to answer charges that it is producing weapons of mass destruction.

It's a sentence that Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin, known as "Chemical Ali," is used to hearing, and Monday he heard it for the third time: death by hanging, for a 1999 crackdown on Shiite Muslims by the Sunni Arab-dominated regime. Chemical Ali, whose real name is Ali Hassan Majid, also had been convicted and sentenced to death for the killings of tens of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s, and for a 1991 crackdown on Shiites in southern Iraq.

When Secretary of State James Baker meets with his Iraqi counterpart, Tariq Aziz, on Wednesday, our man will be there as a messenger, not a negotiator. And the message will be brief: Evacuate Kuwait forthwith or else. Aziz will try to seduce Baker to go to Baghdad, but it won't happen. George Bush will see to that. The "talks" will begin and end in Geneva. Though there are those in Congress who oppose this hard-line ultimatum, they don't have the votes to stop it.

Saddam Hussein's latest novel contains an apparent reference to the Sept. 11 attacks and returns to his favorite theme of good versus evil -- Arabs and Muslims fighting their enemies in the West. The first excerpt of "Get Out, You Damned" appeared Thursday in Asharq al Awsat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, which is publishing the entire work over the next several days.

It's a sentence that Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin, known as "Chemical Ali," is used to hearing, and Monday he heard it for the third time: death by hanging, for a 1999 crackdown on Shiite Muslims by the Sunni Arab-dominated regime. Chemical Ali, whose real name is Ali Hassan Majid, also had been convicted and sentenced to death for the killings of tens of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s, and for a 1991 crackdown on Shiites in southern Iraq.

In the smoke-filled rooms of backroom politics here, it was only natural that a cigar case with a storied past would become convenient fodder for scandal.

Oil prices fell Tuesday after Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said his country was prepared to allow United Nations weapons inspections, a development seen as reducing the threat of a U.S. attack on the Middle East's fourth-biggest producer. Aziz told U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Iraq would allow access to arms sites to answer charges that it is producing weapons of mass destruction.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati will go to the Soviet Union on Friday--two days before his Iraqi counterpart, Tariq Aziz--for talks on the war with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Since David Shaw opted to include me in his list of worst examples of American journalism in 2003 ("Lowlights of Bad Press Deserve More Bad Press," Dec. 21), I suggest he write an addendum adding himself to his list for twisting the facts and ignoring others in my case.

Oil prices fell Tuesday as traders, awaiting further developments in the Persian Gulf war between OPEC members Iran and Iraq, moved to consolidate sharp gains scored last week when Iran unexpectedly accepted a U.N. cease-fire resolution. West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark U.S. crude for immediate delivery, fell 9 cents to $15.96 a barrel in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In U.S.