🚀 go-pugleaf

As US forces rolled into Baghdad, Saddam Hussein, the Ace of 
Spades in the US Army's deck of cards of wanted Iraqis, did a 
spectacular vanishing act. Many Iraqis believe their former leader,
a lifelong dabbler  in the occult, will never be found by coalition
troops scouring the country. His trick, they say, is a magic stone 
that protects him from harm. 

"Saddam never takes any step unless he consults with his 
magician advisers. I'm sure he has two or three with him now," 
says Qassem Ali, an electrician in Baghdad. 

The most commonly held view in Baghdad is that Hussein wore 
a "magic" stone around his neck, which warded off assassins'
 bullets.

"It's all true about the magic stone," says car dealer Mokhaled
Mohammed, sitting in a cafe on Baghdad's upmarket Arasat Street.
"First of all, he put it on a chicken and tried to shoot it. 
Then he put it on a cow, and the bullets went around it."

The interest in the occult was widespread in the regime. 
Hussein's vice-president, Izzat Ibrahim, was said to have 
brought a sect of seers and shamans, the Kaznazani, from 
his native northern district of Iraq and housed them in 
Baghdad. 

from:
http://csmonitor.com/2003/0806/p01s04-woiq.htm