By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Jan. 8 -- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein replaced Oil Ministry Amer Rashid, 1 year past the mandatory retirement age of 63, with Samir Abdul Aziz al-Najim, who was named acting oil minister, OPEC News Agency reported.
Rashid has been in the job since June 1995 after directing Iraq's military industrialization commission. Oil experts told OPECNA that the replacement would not affect Iraq's oil policy.
"The replacement has come somewhat as a surprise. Some are attributing the removal as being related to the possibility that Rashid and/or his biological weapons-specialist wife are to be called for questioning by (United Nations) weapons inspectors," said Tyler Dann, analyst with Banc of America Securities LLC.
UN inspectors questioned Rashid's wife, Rihab Taha, in the 1990s about biological weapons, the Associated Press reported.
Al-Najim is a member of the ruling Baath party's regional command, and he formerly ran the party's military branch. He has been involved in the party's organization, OPECNA reported. Although this is his first ministerial position, al-Najim previously served as Iraq's ambassador to Egypt, Turkey, Spain, and Moscow.
