The setting was the Sheraton Hotel in Mosul, Iraq. It was April 1991. Wyoming Senator Al Simpson and four other U.S. Senators had been dispatched to meet with the president of Iraq. The visit was a last-minute addition to the delegation’s tour of the Middle East. Egypt’s president Mubarak had brokered a deal for the meeting, vouching for the Senators.
Tensions were high between Iraq and the U.S. The regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been responsible for killing a British journalist and using chemical gas on the Kurds.
In Simpson’s retelling of the encounter between Hussein and the U.S. delegation, Hussein arrived impeccably dressed, wearing a beautifully tailored Savoy suit. He smelled like a gardenia. This was in sharp contrast to his reputation as the “Butcher of Baghdad”.
You can learn more about Wyoming Senator Al Simpson’s meeting with Saddam Hussein by listening to audio recordings in the Milward L. Simpson Family Oral History Project at UW’s American Heritage Center.
For more information, visit the American Heritage Center site.