Inside Saddam's New Charm Offensive

TIME's correspondent finds a landscape of smiling icons and hungry people

Saddam is everywhere. Though he never appears in public, his face and figure are inescapable. At traffic circles, you see little stone Saddams and big cast-metal Saddams, right arm raised to embrace his people. In front of a ministry, a brand-new bronze Saddam stands 20 ft. tall in the prow of a boat: the idea is that Saddam will steer his people to the shining shore on the other side of sanctions. On a wall, a white-suited Saddam is painted holding flowers; on another, a uniformed Saddam is staring through binoculars at a battlefield; on a third, he wears a business...

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