Through long years of conflict and crisis in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Tariq Aziz was his master's voice to the outside world — an urbane, cigar-smoking diplomat who relayed Saddam's tough and uncompromising stance to his enemies.
In the months leading up to the 1991 Gulf War, when U.S.-led troops drove Iraqi occupation forces out of Kuwait, the silver-haired foreign minister took center stage, refusing to give ground in the face of growing international pressure on Baghdad.
In a last-ditch meeting with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker aimed at averting that war, Aziz pointedly declined to accept a letter from President George Bush addressed to Saddam, because of what he described as its humiliating tone.