Haitham Rashid Wihaib is an Iraqi man who claims that he was former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's minister of protocol from 1980 to 1993.
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in Western Asia, bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the southwest and Syria to the west. The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. Iraq is home to diverse ethnic groups including Arabs, Kurds, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians and Kawliya. Around 95% of the country's 37 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish.
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization the Iraqi Ba'ath Party—which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and socialism—Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the party to power in Iraq.
Wihaib's father was an Iraqi general who was killed in a car accident orchestrated by Saddam. Wihaib studied in France for several years during the 1970s, earning three doctorates. Upon returning to Iraq he caught the attention of Saddam Hussein, who offered him a job as his minister of protocol, a cabinet position that amounts to essentially a personal secretary. Wihaib accepted, later saying that one didn't say no to Saddam.
France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.
Dr. Wihaib had near daily contact with Saddam for the duration of his time in the position; toward the end he fell out of favor and was the target of several assassination attempts. He escaped from Iraq to London with the aid of British intelligence in 1993. He kept a relatively low profile for several years after that. Beginning in 2002 his name surfaced in news reports attached to descriptions of atrocities committed by Saddam and supporting the US led invasion of Iraq. His prior absence from Western media outlets led some (particularly in the online blogging community) to suspect that he was a fabrication of the American and British governments to provide disinformation to news sources. This rumor was, obviously, false.
London is the capital of and largest city in England and the United Kingdom, and the largest city in the European Union. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile (80 km) estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans. The City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles (2.9 km2) and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow closely its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is also an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 and lasted just over one month, including 21 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq. This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the "End of major combat operations", after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005. U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq until the withdrawal in 2011.
In February 2005 Wihaib made his first visit to the United States, speaking at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University on his experiences with Saddam and his hopes for Iraq's future. Coordinators of the event were initially unaware or unsure of his importance; they were later able to verify his background. At the writing of this article Wihaib is scheduled to speak at two other universities and appear on the American news channel CNN.
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Cable News Network (CNN) is an American news-based pay television channel owned by AT&T's WarnerMedia. CNN was founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner as a 24-hour cable news channel. Upon its launch, CNN was the first television channel to provide 24-hour news coverage, and was the first all-news television channel in the United States.
Wihaib has published a book in Europe, In the Shadow of Saddam, which is also available in Arabic. He also helped create a documentary about his experiences called Dancing with the Devil which was at the time of this article not yet released.
Currently Wihaib served as the chairman of the New Iraqi Green Party and the New Iraq Organization for Justice. He is particularly concerned with relieving debts incurred by Saddam's regime.
