the top sat members of Hussein’s Talfah family and two other immediately related families, the only people he could trust—to the degree that he could trust anybody. He had already married his cousin, the daughter of his uncle Kahyr Allah Talfah. Now Adnan Khayr Alah Talfah—son of his uncle, brother of his wife, his own cousin—was Minister of Defense (until his death in a mysterious helicopter crash in 1989). Hussein Kamil al-Majid, who happened to be both Hussein’s cousin and son-in-law, became chief weapons buyer, and responsible for the development of nuclear and chemical weapons and
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