U.S. Slams Hussein for Spending Habits

Calling him a “mad dictator,” the State Department said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been building palaces worth billions of dollars for himself and his supporters while protesting that his country is being impoverished by U.N. economic sanctions. In addition, U.S. spokesman James P. Rubin said that, despite the sanctions, the Iraqi establishment leaders have been on a drinking binge as shown by the arrival aboard container ships of large quantities of whiskey and smaller amounts of beer and wine. “The regime in Baghdad is consuming more than 10,000 bottles of whiskey, 350,000 cans of beer and 700 bottles of wine per week,” Rubin said. He based the estimates on declassified aerial photographs.