Painting With Saddam; A gripping memoir of life under the Iraqi dictator.(I Fought Alongside Saddam)(Book Review)

Byline: Jenny Barchfield

The day Iraqi painter Basim Yoni won first prize in a prestigious national art show, Saddam's secret service paid him not one, but two visits. The first time, they whisked him to one of the 20 presidential palaces, where an affable Saddam praised his work and presented him with cash and a gold watch. Later that day agents knocked down his door, blindfolded him and took him to Abu Ghraib prison.

Yoni's remarkable memoir, "I Fought Alongside Saddam," (264 pages. Nowtilus Press. In Spanish ) is chock-full of such arbitrary events. In a country ruled by a fickle dictator, Yoni insists, anything can happen. Indeed, it wasn't until his release from prison several days later that Yoni discovered why he had been detained: he owned a red, '85 Volkswagen beetle--the same type of car driven by the person who had planted a bomb in Baath Party headquarters on the day Yoni met with Saddam. To catch the culprit, the secret service simply arrested the owners of all red Beetles in Baghdad.

Born in 1960, Yoni was just 3 when the Baath Party first seized power in Iraq. Though he discovered his talent for painting early on, he had to give up his studies in 1980 to fight in the Iran-Iraq war. For eight long years, Yoni, a Shiite, fought in Iraq's bloody war against its Shiite neighbor. When the war ended, he picked up his ...