Distinguished Statesmen

I trust that the possible publication of Saddam Hussein's memoirs will elicit no snide and sniggering comparisons with the author of A Journey. Saddam Hussein may have been a faithful American ally, but he reformed after August 1990; Saddam Hussein may have had people imprisoned and tortured in Abu Ghraib, but he did it for fun and not profit; Saddam Hussein may have wasted thousands of lives in drawn-out and pointless wars, but those conflicts were crimes and not errors, apart from the one against Iran. As if all this were not contrast enough, Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, but he did have a moustache; and Saddam Hussein, along with Tony's former chum Colonel Gaddafi, received Christmas cards from Margaret Thatcher as long ago as 1981. Above all, Saddam Hussein may have written some insipid and pompously titled fiction, but he did have sufficient good taste not to market it as autobiography.