...from the Jerusalem Post... Mar. 19, 2003 Report: Iraqi deputy prime minister shot while during defection attempt By THE JERUSALEM POST INTERNET STAFF Iraqi deputy Prime Minister Tariq Azziz has been shot by Iraqi troops while attempting to defect, Israel Radio reported. The report, quoting international media sources, said that Azziz had been shot while attempting to defect to Turkey. His condition was not known.
Isnt Israel Radio the ones that also reported that we had captured Bin Lade and that Bush was going to announce it during his speech a few weeks back? In fact, I believe someone has posted a thread about that.
i haven't been able to see any confirmation of this at all...really interesting...keep watching and let me know what you hear! that would be a MAJOR defection...big time!!!
Sky News. Not dead, but might have already defected. 'AZIZ RUMOUR FALSE' US officials have said rumours that Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz had either defected or been shot dead fleeing Baghdad are untrue. The rumours affected oil prices in New York as the George W. Bush's deadline for Saddam and his sons to flee Iraq appraoched. A US official said: "These rumours are just not true". It had been rumoured that Aziz had fled to Kurdish-held northern Iraq. But an a senior Kurdish source scoffed at the rumour Aziz was being held by Kurdish forces. Rumours of the imprisonment, flight or death of member of Saddam Hussein's administration are common, but rarely turn out to be true. Aziz was seen in Iraqi TV coverage of Tuesday's cabinet meeting with Saddam.
Is Israel Radio ever right? They should shut down if all they can report is bogus info. I will just assume they are like a tabloid...as in tabloid radio. What's next? UFOs land in Baghdad and take Saddam/family to God. What a joke!
I suppose the market jumps at every little thing. But, I don't know what the market was responding to exactly. Would oil prices go up or down over this? Really, would his defection make a damn bit of difference to the future of the oil commodities market (if people didn't think it would, that is)?
Iraq's Aziz Puts Defection Rumors to Rest The Associated Press Wednesday, March 19, 2003; 1:10 PM Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz appeared at a news conference Wednesday, putting to rest rumors that he had abandoned Baghdad regime of Saddam Hussein. "I am carrying my pistol to confirm to you that we are ready to fight the aggressors," Aziz said. "American soldiers are nothing but mercenaries and they will be defeated." Britain's Foreign Office had said it was investigating the rumors, which emerged Wednesday from the northern Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq. Asked earlier to confirm the rumors, Nabez Rashid Ahmad, the deputy director for the Kurdish Democratic Party's Sulaymaniyah branch, said "he's in KDP-controlled land." Ismail Sayer, an Iraqi opposition figure in the Democratic Platform of Iraq, also said in a statement faxed from Sofia, Bulgaria, that Aziz had given himself up. "Tariq Aziz has escaped from Baghdad to the north region," Sayer said in a statement. Aziz is the only Christian in Iraqi leadership and one of Iraq's best-known voices to world. He was born in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and is thought to have close ties to the area.
