Content note: Leader-glorifying newspaper illustration from Ba'athist Iraq. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Al-Iraq newspaper, 7 January 1989: new-year illustration of Saddam Hussein with '1989' banner
Pen drawing from an Iraqi daily: Saddam Hussein smiling in tinted glasses above a soldier who carries a banner marked 1989, with a palm, rebuilt apartment blocks, a laurel branch, a dove and a helmet below. The tell is the stack of victory, peace and reconstruction symbols arranged around the leader's portrait.
- Date
- January 7, 1989
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- al-Iraq newspaper (Baghdad)
- Country
- Iraq
- Medium
- Newspaper pages
- Issuer type
- Media
- Regime
- Ba'athist Iraq
- Leader
- Saddam Hussein
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Commemorate
- Themes
- War and the military, Home front
- Event
- Iran Iraq War
- Techniques
- Transfer
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons (scan from al-Iraq newspaper), retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain per Commons (PD-Iraq); Iraq has no U.S. copyright relations (Circular 38A)
al-Iraq newspaper, via Wikimedia Commons.
Text on the object
1989 [Arabic-Indic digits ١٩٨٩ on the banner] [curved lettering inside the ring at right, read as: كانون الثاني — partly legible] [artist's signature, illegible] 1989
1989 [curved lettering inside the ring: 'January' (Kanun al-thani), partly legible] [artist's signature, illegible] 1989
Read from a 500 px render; the only text is the banner year, the ring lettering and the signature. The ring lettering is read from the file name and partly from the image, so treat it as probable rather than certain. Translation is a machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader.
