HUSSEIN SADDAM: (1937-2006) Lot n° 1663

HUSSEIN SADDAM: (1937-2006) President of Iraq 1979-2003. A.L.S., in Arabic, one page, 8vo, n.p. (Republican Palace, Baghdad?), 27 th November 1990, to the press secretary of the Foreign Minister, on printed stationery featuring the coat of arms of Iraq, in Arabic. Hussein gives directions in response 'to the accusations of the traitor of the two Holy Mosques [King] Fahd, as he claims that if it were not for Saudi Arabia and its support for Iraq, then Iran would have defeated us', remarking 'Forgetting the convoys of martyrs who fell in defence of Iraq and the Arab nation, especially the Gulf countries that you plotted and are plotting against us at this moment'. Two file holes to the right edge and a couple of small holes and light creasing to the upper edge, otherwise VG Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (1921-2005) King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia 1982-2005. After ascending the throne in 1982 King Fahd spent considerable sums in supporting Saddam Hussein's Baathist Iraq in its war against Iran, fearing that the 1979 Revolution in Iran could lead to similar Islamic upheaval in Saudi Arabia. Less than a decade later, in 1990, Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, placing the Iraqi army (the largest in the Middle East at the time) on the Saudi-Kuwait border. During the Gulf War that followed King Fahd agreed to host American-led coalition troops in his Kingdom and later allowed American troops to be based there, a decision which brought him considerable criticism and opposition.