Doritos Galore and Love Tips for Jailers: The Strange Life of Saddam Hussein in Prison

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ruled his country with an iron fist — and bloodshed — from 1979 to 2003, the year his regime fell to the American invasion. But the tough guy from Iraq, who was imprisoned by the United States until his hanging on December 30, 2006, led a strange life in prison, due to excessive consumption of Doritos and frantic cleaning phases.

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Love the chips

After the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, ostensibly to find “weapons of mass destruction” that had not existed before, American forces captured the country’s leader, Saddam Hussein, and imprisoned him awaiting trial.

The task is given to three soldiers assigned to guard the president’s cell, who otherwise exposed all the oddities of Saddam’s days. 2005 testimonies reported by NBC News at the time of the prisoner’s guards reveal a private lifestyle, to say the least.

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First of all, we find the dictator’s eating habits: Saddam was very fond of the American brand Raisin Bran Crunch for breakfast, but above all he was simultaneously obsessed with Cheetos (the transatlantic equivalent of Curly).

at point “to become angry” when they ran out. Until one American soldier changes his food for Doritos, his new indulgence: “He could eat a family-sized box of Doritos in 10 minutes… That’s the only thing he was talking about, that’s all he wanted to eat.”Shun O’Shea, one of the immediate managers in charge of security.

Very friendly boss

But far from the chasm in Doritos, Saddam Hussein became a close friend of these guards. They paint a picture of a friendly and open-minded man, to the point of getting close to his guards, knowing their name, their history and their lives. In particular, O’Shea reports that after telling Saddam he was not married, the former dictator began giving him advice: “You have to find a good woman. Not too smart, not too stupid. Not too old, not too small. A woman who can cook and clean.”. Saddam Hussein laughed and slapped the soldier.

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The former dictator is also said to have displayed an advanced phobia of germs, which led him to clean everything in his cell, wash his hands after shaking one of them, and wipe down cutlery brought to him to eat. He was washing his clothes by hand.

Delusions of grandeur to the end

The imprisoned former Iraqi president also admitted to admiring Ronald Reagan and considering Bill Clinton an “okay,” unlike President Bush, his opponents in 1991 and 2003, and his former jailers. However, O’Shea softened the tone: “Eventually he made it clear that he had no grudges and would just like to talk to Bush Jr., so that they could become friends.”

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But the former president also likened himself to Jesus, after betraying, he said, a relative who pointed out his hideout to American forces: sacrilege equivalent to sacrilege in the words of “Judas.” Saddam Hussein did not lose his paranoia and was convinced that he was the Iraqi president, even in prison, as summed up by the latter J.I. Dawson at the time: “That’s what he thinks, 100%.”.

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