Saddam: ruthless dictator or delicate blossom?

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Saddam Hussein may have been A-okay exterminating thousands of Iraqi Kurds and destroying the oil economy of an entire country, but apparently life in prison was a little more than his hard shell could handle.  

The pan-Arab paper Al-Hayat (English version of its news site here) has printed excerpts from the prison diaries of Iraq’s prolific former dictator, written during his stint in custody between 2003 and 2006. In his prison time writings, Saddam describes the hardships he faced, including the personal struggle of asking for things -- like the time he asked for a flower. "It was a serious sacrifice from me to ask for the first time in my life,” he wrote.

Also, while he probably should have been more concerned about his impending execution, Saddam's main worry was actually contracting an STD . . . from his clothesline. Upon learning that his laundry was hung on the same line as the clothes of his U.S. military guards, he wrote:

I explained to them that they are young and they could have young people's diseases…  My main concern was to not catch a venereal disease, an HIV disease, in this place… What can the Americans and other invaders... bring to an (invaded) country apart from dangerous diseases?"

I knew the man was backward, but how early '90s -– if you can’t get AIDS from a toilet seat, you surely can’t get AIDS from a clothesline.