Saddam Surfaces Again
President Saddam Hussein was shown on Iraqi television for a second time in two days Thursday, appearances that could help dispel rumors of a stroke.
He appeared smoking a cigar while chatting to a mostly Egyptian group of entertainers.
"Saddam loves his nation, but he loves Egypt especially because he has lived in Egypt," television viewers heard the president say.
Saddam lived in Egypt for four years after taking part in a failed attempt to assassinate Iraqi Prime Minister Abdel Karim Qassim in 1959.
An Iraqi dissident group based in Syria claimed that the 63-year-old Iraqi leader was hospitalized late Sunday after suffering a "severe stroke." There was no independent confirmation of the report.
"The report is a nonsensical fabrication that is not even worth responding to," government spokesman Salam Khatab told reporters.
It was the huge New Year's eve parade in Baghdad that sparked the current rumors about Saddam Hussein's health.
He was seen greeting his troops by firing shots in the air.
But Iraqi opposition sources who watched the live broadcast saw unusual movements in the crowds.
"There were two times when the screen went blank. I think there is something serious going on there, something unusual. We don't know what," said Iraqi opposition spokesman Mowaffak al-Rubaie.
Iraqi officials subsequently denied reports that Saddam may have suffered a stroke Sunday night. Iraqi TV showed him chairing a cabinet meeting that it claimed took place on Monday.
If something does happen to Saddam, experts believe that could trigger a scramble for power by one of his two sons, or possibly a coup within the upper ranks of the army.
Saddam became effective ruler of Iraq in 1968, when the Arab Baath Socialist Party took over in a coup he had helped organize. He has held onto power through a devastating 1980-88 war with Iran and the Gulf War than ended a decade ago.
He has survived a decade of U.N. sanctions imposed for his invasion of Kuwait, but the embargo has ruined Iraq's infrastructure and caused a plunge in living standards and skyrocketing deaths among children.
Other recent reports have had Saddam in poor health.
A Kuwaiti weekly reported in September that he was suffering from cancer. Some Iraqi opposition sources and regional publications had said that Saddam had lymphatic cancer, but the Iraqi embassy in Bangladesh denied the reports.
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