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On Thursday, ABC (US) will televise an interview with Parisoula Lampsos who claims to be a former mistress of Saddam Hussein (see Anai Rhoades' post - http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg01353.html). The program's timing will raise eyebrows, as will its lurid claims (high level contacts between the Government of Iraq and Bin Laden; Saddam supposedly plotted Uday's assassination) and its sourcing (Ms. Lampsos surfaced via the INC, a fact ABC doesn't disclose in its online report). If there's any information regarding Ms. Lampsos' credibility, or any indication the INC shopped this story around, please forward ... Amateur shrinks will note that Claire Shipman now joins a growing list of women in media (Judith Miller, Laurie Mylroie, Barbara Crossette, and Oriana Fallaci) who've evidenced an unseemly fascination with Saddam's bedroom. Can a Barbara Walters interview be far behind? Regards, Drew Hamre Golden Valley, MN USA === http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/DailyNews/iraq_saddam_mistress020908.html Defector Says She Was Saddam’s Mistress Woman Says She Heard Outlaw Leader’s Innermost Thoughts Sept. 8 — A woman who says she was Saddam Hussein's mistress describes a Viagra-fueled lover who enjoyed watching The Godfather and tapes of his enemies being tortured — but cried as the allies took Kuwait from Iraqi occupation during the Gulf War. "He don't believe in his mother, he don't believe in God, he didn't believe in nobody," Parisoula Lampsos, 54, told ABCNEWS' Claire Shipman in an interview from a safe house in Lebanon. Shipman's complete report will be broadcast Thursday on Primetime and published on ABCNEWS.com. "He believe only for Saddam," Lampsos added. "He look at the mirror, 'I am Saddam.' He went like that. He looks. 'I am Saddam. Heil Hitler!'" Allegedly Helped Bin Laden As U.S. officials look for current links between Saddam and al Qaeda, Lampsos said she was told the Iraqi leader has met and given money in the past to Osama bin Laden, according to one of several written excerpts from the Primetime Thursday broadcast. Lampsos saw bin Laden at Saddam's palace in the 1980s, she said, and claimed Saddam's son Oday told her his father met with bin Laden again in the mid-1990s and gave him money. "He give to Osama bin Laden," Lampsos said. "He give to Palestine." Lampsos says she was Saddam's mistress on and off for 30 years, and at times saw him almost on a daily basis. But after fleeing Iraq a year ago, she fears Saddam will try to kill her, and she disguises herself by wearing a veil in public. Early on, she loved him, she said. He gave her a room in his palace stocked with clothes and gifts. "He was tender," she said. "He was warm. He was nice. He was another person." ‘You Are Afraid to Say No’ But as Saddam grew older, he dyed his hair, used a relaxation mask to reduce wrinkles, and sometimes used Viagra to enhance their sexual encounters, she said. "Saddam, he don't need to force anybody," she said. "You are afraid. You are afraid to say no. … I was with him because I was afraid of him." As she grew more disenchanted, she said, she realized she would never be allowed to leave. "I told him, 'Why? Let me go now,'" she recalled of the many times she said she tried to break off the relationship. "'I don't have anything to give you more. You can have any woman. What you need me?' He look at me very, very, very strong. He said, 'You belong to me. You are going to die here in Baghdad.'" She knew Saddam was willing to go to extreme measures to get what he wanted. She says she saw first-hand examples of his ruthlessness — such as when she believes he ordered the assassination of his oldest son because he viewed the son, Oday, as a troublemaker and a rival for power. The assassination attempt failed, and Oday was left paralyzed. "I didn't want in this way," Lampsos recalled Saddam saying afterwards. "I wanted him to die. It was better for him." Even when relaxing, Saddam's brutal side could come out, she said. According to Lampsos, Saddam loved watching The Godfather, listening to "Strangers in the Night" by Frank Sinatra, or seeing videos of his enemies being tortured. He sometimes donned a cowboy hat, sipped whiskey on the rocks and puffed on a cigar as he watched the torture. "He was happy, happy, happy," she said of the torture viewing. "Happiest day." Saddam also raised gazelles, she said, because they were his favorite dinnertime meal, and when he was hungry he handpicked them to be slaughtered. ‘Thinks All the Time He Is Sick’ But Saddam also lived with fears, Lampsos said. Saddam "thinks all the time he is sick," she said, and prefers that people kiss him on the shoulder instead of the cheek so he doesn't get infected with germs. Several years ago, she added, Saddam summoned a doctor from Cuba because he suffered a stroke, something Western observers had suspected. "If you see him in some photos, his mouth is not normal," Lampsos said. "It droops." According to Lampsos, Saddam worried somewhat when George W. Bush was elected president, believing the younger Bush would come after him. But, she claimed, "He don't care." ‘Who’s America? … I Am Saddam’ Lampsos said Saddam was convinced that he would win the Gulf War a decade ago because, "He never lose. He always think that he will win." Even after the United States stepped into the fray, she added, Saddam thought, "Who's America? Who are they? What [do] they think they are? I am Saddam." But when the allies seized Kuwait, she sensed he had been crying, as his eyes appeared to be "with tears. His eye was red, red, red." She said Saddam told her: "'I lose.' I said, 'What?' He said, 'Kuwait.' He said, 'They took Kuwait from me but I will took it again.'" === http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54924-2002Sep8?language=printer <excerpt> Saddam's Sexy Side For ABC's Claire Shipman, interviewing Saddam Hussein's mistress was nothing like chasing the Monica Lewinsky story. "We're not in Clinton territory here," Shipman says -- even if the interview with Parisoula Lampsos did include her claim that the Iraqi leader uses Viagra. And that Hussein could be romantic, though he had four other mistresses. Shipman and producer Chris Vlasto say they spent months verifying Lampsos's account with U.S. and European intelligence officials and other Iraqi defectors (without a blue dress, they had to work hard). But even more interesting is how they tracked down the 54-year-old woman for Thursday's "PrimeTime Live." Vlasto, working with the opposition Iraqi National Congress, waited for days in a Middle East country he declines to name until two Iraqis drove him at high speed to a safe house. There he conversed with Lampsos through an Arabic translator, learning only later that she speaks limited English. The fact that both are of Greek descent didn't hurt. "What made her credible is she actually said nice things about Saddam," Vlasto says. "That and the level of detail convinced me to go back to ABC and say, 'We've got to do this woman!' " Shipman met with Lampsos in May at a safe house outside Beirut. The Iraqi dissidents "thought it would be easier for Parisoula to talk to a woman, that it was hard to explain why she was the mistress of a dictator," she says. Vlasto, who helped break some of the Lewinsky scoops, says Lampsos agreed to show her face because the dissidents believe that going public will make retaliation by Hussein's forces less likely. "Unlike Lewinsky, it was life and death. She's risking her life to do this interview," he says. The two days of discussions ranged from Hussein's sex life to his hiding of chemical weapons to what Lampsos describes as his fondness for watching videotapes of his enemies being tortured. "This may be the hardest interview I've ever done," Shipman says. "It was exhausting. She was so emotional and so scared." === http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/56499.htm SADDAM'S EX-LOVER By ANDY GELLER MONSTER'S MOLL: Parisoula Lampsos (above) reveals Saddam Hussein's love of torture videos and "The Godfather" to ABC News' Claire Shipman. - ABC News September 8, 2002 -- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was visited at one of his palaces by Osama bin Laden in the '80s. A decade later, Saddam's son Uday met with bin Laden, and Saddam gave him money. "He gave to Osama bin Laden," says Parisoula Lampsos, who says she was Saddam's mistress for 30 years. "He gave to Palestine." Saddam called Lampsos "Shaqraa" - "the blonde." She says the Butcher of Baghdad boosts his sexual prowess with Viagra. He loves "The Godfather." And he likes to dance to Frank Sinatra's rendition of "Strangers in the Night." These and other fascinating glimpses into the mind of the Iraqi leader are contained in an exclusive interview the auburn-haired, effervescent Lampsos - now in exile - gave ABC News. She says that Saddam: * Tried to have Uday, his eldest son, assassinated. * Wept when he lost the Persian Gulf War. * Fears President Bush more than Bush's father. * Raises and nurtures gazelles - his favorite food - which he hand-picks to be slaughtered for his meals. Lampsos, 54, was reputedly the favorite of the five mistresses Saddam has taken over the last 30 years. She saw him two or three times a week, and, in a sense, she had it all: jewels, cars, her own home and a villa on the grounds of Saddam's palace, with an entire room for her clothes. Lampsos was in love with Saddam when the affair began but, as the years went on, her passion cooled. The once-affectionate Saddam had become cruel. He beat her. She wanted out. He said she belonged to him. In the early 1970s, when their fling temporarily cooled, Lampsos married a rich Iraqi businessman who fathered her two daughters. Saddam threw the husband in jail and seized his assets. A year ago, she turned to the Iraqi National Congress, Saddam's main opposition, which smuggled her from Iraq. She now shuttles from safe house to safe house. ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman met her at one in Beirut. "She's a bubbly, vivacious woman who can make a man feel very comfortable and very masculine," Shipman says. "She's captivating. There's something about her that draws people to her." In the interview, to be aired this week on "Primetime Thursday," Lampsos says Saddam ordered the hit on Uday, whose car was sprayed with machine-gun fire in December 1996 as he was driving in Baghdad. The son, who was left paralyzed by the attack, had killed a bodyguard who carried messages between Saddam and another mistress. According to Lampsos, the Iraqi dictator said of Uday: "I will kill him someday. Really, I mean I will kill him." After the shooting, he expressed regret that his son had been paralyzed. "I didn't want [it] in that way," he told Lampsos. "I wanted [him] to die; it was better for him." Lampsos says the vain Saddam expressed total confidence of winning the Persian Gulf War, saying, "Who's America? Who [do] they think they are? I am Saddam." But after he lost, he wept, she says. "His eye was red, red, red." Lampsos says Saddam fears President George W. Bush more than he did the first President Bush, who launched Operation Desert Storm, and believes the current president will go after him. "But he don't care," she says. Saddam's favorite movie is "The Godfather," Lampsos says, but he equally enjoys videos of the torture of his enemies - while smoking a cigar, having a drink and wearing a cowboy hat. Shipman says Lampsos, who provided valuable details about the layout of the palace and how often Saddam goes to its various rooms to intelligence officials, believes the dictator seeks "eternal fame." "He believes history will judge him as one of the great leaders of all time," Shipman says. "That's what he wants." === http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,788187,00.html Terror of tyrant's mistress in gilded prison by David Rose Sunday September 8, 2002 The Observer Drew Hamre Golden Valley, MN USA _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk