Thallium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The CIA is believed (by its Inspector General) to have conceived a scheme to poison Fidel Castro by exposure to thallium salts placed in his shoes while they were being polished. The goal was to discredit him by causing him to lose his characteristic hair and beard. The scheme progressed as far as testing on animals, but the trip during which the poison was to be administered fell through.[12]"

You know, it would have been so much easier to just kill Saddam this way. The number of times Rumsfeld has met him to sell him guns, and maps to invade Iran, he could have arranged a meeting easily and slipped a few drops of rat poison in his tea when he wasn't looking.

Certainly it would have avoided hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and they could have blamed it on the Russian probably as well.