| And we didn't even bake him a cake. |
BAGHDAD - Iraq’s ousted leader Saddam Hussein, being tried on charges of crimes against humanity, spent his third birthday in a row behind bars as he turned 69 on Friday.His birthday attracted little of the frenzy the date once engendered when it was celebrated as a national holiday during his 24 years of strong-armed rule from 1979 to 2003. US officials were tight-lipped about what Saddam was up to on his birthday. “We don’t have much interest in providing any color to Saddam’s life,” a US military spokesman told AFP. Even in his hometown of Tikrit, Saddam’s birthday passed unnoticed, although a few dozen posters bearing his portrait were seen in the majority Sunni city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.