Saddam Pumping Gas in Al Ouja, Iraq?

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http://chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=3775

Few dull moments for Hussein look-alike

Saturday, August 09, 2003

An Arab gas station attendant named Mohammed Hussein Daoud has been having unique adventures in northern Iraq, due to his strong resemblance to Saddam Hussein. Laurie Goering of the Chicago Tribune filed this story, which appeared on the azcentral.com website.

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AL OUJA, Iraq - Saddam Hussein, dressed in a greasy blue jumpsuit, spends his afternoons pumping gas at this sleepy village's service station, just south of his hometown of Tikrit.

Or at least that's how it looks to visiting motorists who pull in for a fill-up and quickly do a double take at Muhammad Hussein Daoud, with his unmistakable heavy jowls, bushy mustache and big dark sunglasses.

"All of us around here have one grandfather," an ancestor nine generations back, "so it's inevitable," explains the 64-year-old Saddam look-alike. "My name is similar, and so is my face."

Similar doesn't begin to describe Daoud's resemblance to the missing dictator, a distant cousin who for a time attended the same grade school. Though Daoud was never recruited as one of Saddam's official stand-ins, he could be his double: Same paunch, same bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows, same lined face and sagging cheeks. All he lacks is a rifle in his raised hand.

Daoud's face has led him into no shortage of adventures over the years, from assassination attempts to mistaken rescues by Iraq's secret service.

But since Saddam fled into hiding after U.S. forces took Baghdad on April 9, the gas station attendant's mug has gotten him more attention than ever - particularly after the ruling coalition began offering a $25 million reward for Saddam's head.

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© 2003, Chicago Tribune l Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services

Note: I remember posting this story back in 2003 here at DU with a photo of Muhammad. You couldn't tell the difference between him and Saddam. They looked like identical twins. I hope he made it alright.

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1. I wonder if this is the guy Bush has for the show trial? n/t