 Darwish was also sent to Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan and Iraq between 1970 and 1972.While in Iraq, he met Saddam Hussein, at that time still relatively unknown in the West and just beginning his political career as shadow deputy leader of the local Baath Party and vice-chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council.There is an amusing well known story in Fleet Street about the occasion when Darwish, along with another Middle East correspondent, John Bulloch, met Saddam Hussein, who invited "her majesty's press corps" to a glass of the Iraqi national drink, which turned out to be a bottle of Black Label Whisky.