Saddam Hussein: secrets of his
life and leadership
Interview
with Saïd K. Aburish
Why did you decide to
spend so many years writing this book about Saddam Hussein?
Saddam
Hussein is the most methodical Arab leader of the 20th century. He's organized.
He's a daydreamer. And also, he had the following. He was popular. But Saddam
Hussein is a planner. And he has affected the
What insights can you
give us into understanding him?
Well,
the first thing to remember is that Saddam Hussein spent 20 years creating a
personality, an image for himself. And since the Gulf War, his opponents have
done the same -- created a completely different personality, of course. So you
have to sift through what Saddam created and what his opponents created to
reach the real person. The real person has no ideology whatsoever. That is the
most important thing to remember about Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is into
realpolitik. He wanted to take
And he had to be the one
in charge?
Without
any doubt. You know during the war with
Extraordinary willpower?
Without
any doubt. Considering his humble background, amazing willpower, amazing focus.
Amazing ability to achieve his dreams. There is no stopping the man. He always
has things in focus. He never misses a beat. In terms of what the country's all
about, and in terms of where his country fits in the whole world
One of the re-occurring
things in your book is the idea that he's imposed Stalinism on a tribal
society. What do you actually mean by that?
Saddam
Hussein borrowed from Stalinism. He had his security people trained in
Do we know whether or not
Saddam has actually studied Stalin's tactics?
There
is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Saddam studied Stalin. Stalin is his
hero. Stalin came from a humble background. Stalin was brought up by his
mother. Stalin used thugs. Stalin used the security service. Stalin hated his
army. And so does Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein models himself after Stalin
more than any other man in history
He has a full library of books
about Stalin. He reads about him, and when he was a young man -- even before he
attained any measure of power -- he used to wander around the offices of the
Ba'ath Party telling people "Wait until I take over this country. I will
make a Stalinist state out of it yet." People used to laugh him off. They
shouldn't have. It was a very serious proposition indeed
Briefly, what is his
background?
He was
from a very poor family, in a village called Al Awja, which is next to the town
of
After
that he became a gunman, a thug for the Ba'ath Party and he participated in the
assassination attempt on the country's strong man, Gen. Kassem, in 1959. Then
he went into exile in
Whatever
Saddam Hussein is he is above all an organizer, in a part of the world which
hasn't seen much of that. And this is why he -- to use a word that does not fit
him -- he actually shines when you compare him with other Arab leaders
For people who don't
understand
Family
and tribal connections are supreme. They come ahead of ideology. They come
ahead of commitment to the nation-state, they come ahead of all commitments.
Saddam Hussein realizes that. This is why, at a certain point, he transferred
power from the Ba'ath Party, which put him in power, to his family, because he
decided that the family can be trusted, but the party cannot be trusted
He
weakened the party and strengthened the family, and that is the situation in
the country now. His second son is the head of the dreaded security system. His
first son, who was a psychopath, runs all types of committees in the country.
His brother is on the security system, his cousins are in key positions in the
army. The people who come from Al Awja are in other positions in the army. The
people who come from Tikrit, the town near Al Awja, are in other positions.
It's a pyramid of relationships, tribal and familial. And this is what he
depends on. And, those people are loyal to him, because they believe that if
Saddam goes, they will go as well
During the time of that
assassination attempt in 1959, when Saddam first leaves the country and goes to
The
great game played in the
While
he was in
There
is very good reason to believe that Saddam Hussein was in contact with the
American embassy in
So
there is a record of Saddam visiting the American embassy frequently, and there
is a record of the Egyptian security people telling him not to do that.
However, one must remember that at that time, Saddam was a minor official of
the Ba'ath Party. He was not terribly important. And he was really following in
the footsteps of other people who are much more important
And
what would be the idea behind all this?
The visits
to the American embassy by Saddam Hussein and other members of the Ba'ath Party
had one purpose, and one purpose only: to cooperate with the Americans towards
the overthrow of General Kassem in Iraq. Kassem was slightly pro-communist and
the Americans wanted to get rid of that danger. Allen Dulles described
There
was a coup in
The
Do
we know to what extent Saddam Hussein was involved in the killings when he came
back from
I have
documented over 700 people who were eliminated, mostly on an individual basis,
after the 1963 coup. And they were eliminated based on lists supplied by the
CIA to the Ba'ath Party. So the CIA and the Ba'ath were in the business of
eliminating communists and leftists who were dangerous to the Ba'ath's takeover
The
coup took place in April, Saddam Hussein did not return to
Jumping
forward a few years to 1967 and the Arab-Israeli conflict, we've heard that the
Soviets then looked to
In
1968,
The
United States didn't want either to happen. The United States wanted the oil
for American oil companies; they wanted the sulpher for themselves. They
thought that if Iraq went to the Soviet Union or France, Iraq would be lost to
them. In this they were joined by the Ba'ath Party. The Party used the
concessions for oil and sulpher as a bargaining point to endear itself once
again to America. And they arrived once again at some kind of an agreement of
collaboration between the two sides. On the American side negotiating for both
the oil and sulpher was a well-known personality, Robert Anderson, the former
secretary of treasury under Eisenhower. He met secretly with the Ba'ath and
they agreed that if they took over power these concessions will be given to the
United States
And so
once again the United States was in the business of supporting the Ba'ath
office for the government of Iraq. The Ba'ath was successful. This time Saddam
Hussein played a key role. He was one of the people who donned a military
uniform -- though he's not a military man -- and attacked the presidential
palace and occupied it. The president, being weak, surrendered immediately. Two
weeks after they took over power on the 17th of July 1968, there was what they
call "the correction movement." That meant getting rid of the
non-Ba'ath elements in the coup, and Saddam was prominent in that. As a matter
of fact he held a gun to the head of the prime minister and said, "You're
going with me to the airport because you're leaving this country." And the
guy pleaded with him, said, "I have family, I have a wife and kids."
And Saddam said, "Well as long as you behave, they'll be fine." He
took him to the airport, he put him in a plane, he deported him, and of course
years after, he assassinated him in front of the Intercontinental Hotel in London.
The man couldn't escape him in the long run
However,
the communists are hardly thrown out and not long after, they turn to Saddam,
and he personally leads a delegation to Moscow, and there's a development of a
relationship between the two. What game was he playing?
Well,
alliances of convenience don't last very long. The Ba'ath Party was committed
to certain things which American foreign policy could not tolerate. In this
particular case it lasted a very short time, really a matter of two weeks. And
Saddam got rid of all of the pro-American elements in the government and he
asserted his authority on the country. He was not the president. He was the
second man, after a relation of his from Tikrit, President Ahmed Bakr. But what
happened immediately after that is the things they needed, they couldn't get
from the United States anymore. They needed help economically. They needed
arms. And the United States were not in the business of openly supplying arms
to Arab countries to re-equip themselves for another round of fighting. That
was the major issue between the two sides. Saddam knew he could get the arms
from Russia and he journeyed to Russia -- this was his first trip outside Iraq,
outside of exile of course -- and he got what he wanted. And the alliance of
convenience disintegrated as they always do
So,
there was a new alliance, this time with the Soviets
In
1972, Iraq and the Soviet Union signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation.
They wanted to seal the cooperation taking place between them in a formal
alliance. The reason Saddam signed that treaty of friendship and cooperation
was because that obligated the local communist party, which was very strong, to
cooperate with the Ba'ath Party, which was not so strong at that time
Of
course the Russians loved an opportunity to have a hold on Iraq and they signed
the treaty and told the local communist party to join the Iraqi government.
That alliance internally did not last very long. But the external one was on
and off for a very long time. And the Soviet Union at one point thought Iraq
was a more important ally than Egypt. Its army always acquitted itself better
than the Egyptian army. It was a wealthy country that didn't need a lot of aid,
like Egypt. And it was the gateway to the Gulf, to oil. It represented a more
immediate threat to the West's lifeline than Egypt did
So
Saddam in the early '70s is Iraq's vice president. Could you describe how he's
already setting up a Stalinist system with control of the government
In the
early '70s, Saddam started out controlling one small department called the
Peasants Department; at that time the Ba'ath regime, for a very brief period of
time, was committed to installing a democratic system in Iraq. It was a bit of
a dream. Came the time for them to assign the job of head of the security
system, and no one from the inner circle wanted the job. Everybody says,
"This is a dirty job. I don't want it." Young Saddam Hussein raised
his hand, and said, "I want the job. I'll take over the security
system."
He
took over the security system, called it the Department of General Relations
and proceeded to expand it. This was his first step towards attaining power
The
president at the time, Ahmed Bakr had been a general, and a very nice man.
Quite a religious man too. Saddam was a relation of his. He surrendered
everything to Saddam, because Saddam worked an 18-hour day. In no time at all,
Saddam was head of security, he was head of the Peasants Department, he was
head of relations with the Kurds, he was head of the committee that controlled
the oil. He was head of the committee that controlled relations with the Arab
countries. He was head of the workers syndicate
There
was a conflict between all these departments that Saddam controlled so tightly and
the armed forces -- because the armed forces is the one organization capable of
overthrowing government. Saddam proceeded to emasculate the army and place his
professional soldier relations from Tikrit in key positions. For example, his
brother-in-law became chief of staff of the army. And of course soon enough,
like all people who are dictators, who are jealous of the army, he appointed
himself general and eventually like Stalin he became field marshal
So
much of what you just described certainly has Stalinist overtones
Without
any doubt everything Saddam did had Stalinist overtones. In particular, the
reliance on the security system rather than the armed forces, the jealousy of
the generals in the armed forces, the use of criminal elements within the country,
and, incorporating them into the security system. And those people were sort of
semi-literate thugs whose loyalty was to Saddam, without whom, they were
nothing. And so he brought them in, he depended on them, and they did him
service. Anybody he wanted to get rid of he got rid of. And the door was wide
open
He had
two qualities that put him ahead of his colleagues. His ability to work an
18-hour day. Endlessly. And a sense of organization. You didn't see Saddam at
three o'clock and miss that appointment by five minutes. Because Saddam would
ask you why you are five minutes late, or five minutes early. If you had an
appointment with Saddam at three, you showed up at three. That was that. He is
that organized. He is that methodical
And
perhaps another comparison to Stalin is his relationship with Bakr and,
Stalin's relationship with Lenin
Without
any doubt there are similarities in the careers of Stalin and Saddam. Among
other things, the major one is Stalin played second fiddle to Lenin for a long
time. And it was then Lenin became very suspicious of Stalin. Saddam did the
same thing with Ahmed Hassan Bakr and towards the end, Ahmed Hassan Bakr became
very suspicious of Saddam and wanted to get rid of him. But it was too late. By
then Saddam was in control of the whole country. And Bakr was shoved aside and
replaced. Saddam became president. That is one similarity
The use
of criminal elements is key in this. Both of them used them, both of them
rotated the heads of the security system because they knew this was the system
that controlled the country. So no one could stay in that position for a long
time. The longest serving head of security was Saddam's half-brother who was
there for eight years. And he eventually was moved into another job by Saddam because
he became too powerful
Let's
talk about your own personal involvement in the early '70s. You mentioned
Saddam wanted certain things from the Soviet Union, but perhaps he wasn't
getting them. Arms -- he wasn't happy with what he was getting. He looked to
the West and there was a directive that came out, asking if Iraq was working
with the best companies. Could you tell us that story?
I
became involved with the regime working through a Palestinian group which had
set up a consulting company in Beirut. I worked with its successor, Arab
Resources Management. And we were in the business of helping the Iraqis realize
the huge economic development plans which came very fast as a result of the
first oil shock in 1973. In 1976, I received this very short memorandum. It was
not addressed to me, it was addressed to one of my colleagues in Beirut and it
says -- addressing him by his first name -- "Are the best companies in the
world working in Iraq? And if the answer is no, why not?"
So my
colleague gave me this and he said, "You're a word man, answer him."
Of course I prepared an answer, 12 pages long, not as short as his question.
And I said basically no, the best companies in the world were not working in
Iraq. The reasons were changes of priorities, bureaucracy, this that, many
reasons. But the last reason was that they put politics ahead of competence.
They awarded the contracts to companies on the basis of the country's political
outlook, rather than because they're the best companies in the world
The memorandum
came back from Saddam saying "I agree with everything except this --
everyone in the world does this. But now, your job is to get me the best
companies in the world to work in Iraq." And we proceeded to do that. And
everybody wanted to work in Iraq. Iraq had oil. Iraq had a population unlike
some of the sparsely populated oil producing countries. Iraq had first class
technocrats. Iraq had a functioning bureaucracy and Iraq had the plans to
develop their country. And he went into developing the country in a very big
way
Down-streaming
the oil business came first. Reclaiming land for agriculture came after that.
Building railroads, building roads. Mining phosphate, mining sulpher. Building
even factories to make stone windows. Nothing escaped Saddam Hussein's
attention. And he never forgot a thing. And he got the best companies in the
world. We got them for him, and he worked with them, and he worked with them
very very successfully. Iraq, soon enough, because of the pace of development
in the country, needed labor and they imported 2 million Arab workers from
other Arab countries. And through being generous to the Arab workers who came
and worked without work permit, went on social security without needing it, and
things like that, Saddam was making his first bid towards Arab leadership. That
was his first move towards assuming the leadership of the Arab people. Through
the workers who came to work in Iraq through during the heydays of OPEC
Why
were you working for the regime of Saddam?
There
is a whole generation of people like me. We are about the same age as Saddam --
I'm two years older actually -- who believe that is where the Arab dream was --
in Iraq. Iraq had wealth, it had population, it had prospects, it had a strong
army. They were not backward -- and I will use the word "backward" --
like some of the oil-producing countries. They offered us a future. And we took
that chance. We were enamored with what Saddam was doing. Make no mistake about
it. Anybody who tells you otherwise didn't know what Saddam was about. He's not
telling the truth
We knew
Saddam was tough. But the balance was completely different then. He was also
delivering. The Iraqi people were getting a great deal of things that they
needed and wanted and he was popular. He eliminated people here and there. With
time, as with all dictators, the balance switched. And all we saw of Saddam was
elimination and very little benefit to the people
You
became aware that he was actually looking to acquire a nuclear capability for a
bomb?
Saddam
started a program to acquire unconventional weapons in 1974 when he was vice
president. He formed a committee and called it the Committee for Strategic
Development. It was a three-person committee with Saddam as chair. His
brother-in-law and chief of staff of the Iraqi army, as a member, and his
deputy, Adnan Hamdani, as another member. This committee operated secretly.
Even the president didn't know what they were doing. They skimmed off 5 percent
of the oil income and used it to acquire unconventional weapon. It was the only
thing this committee was doing
Now, to
achieve his aim, he needed two things in Iraq. One, money. And there was a
great deal of money -- we had the first oil shock and Iraq was getting more
money than it was spending. So 5 percent of the oil income was a great deal of
money. He had the money. Then, you needed the human factor -- the scientists
and engineers -- and Iraq had a great many of them. But to show you Saddam's
brilliance, he added to that by starting a repatriation program of Arab
scientists and engineers from all over the world. And I mean Arab, not Iraqi.
I'm talking about Egyptians, Palestinians, Moroccans, you name it. He brought
them over and he integrated them into his program
With
these two things in place and the will to acquire unconventional weapons, there
was only one way to stop Saddam. That would have been for the supplier
countries who made the equipment, or made the atomic reactors, not to sell
them. That did not happen. And to put it in the vernacular -- after that, he
was off and running
And
you saw up close the willingness of some of these countries and companies to
work with him and the willingness of their governments to approve these various
exports?
Most of
Saddam's requests to Western governments were positively received. If there was
the occasional no by a government, he went to another place and he got what he
wanted. There were no constraints on getting what he wanted. He got it in time.
Time was the only limit to what Saddam was capable of achieving. He got
blueprints to help make chemical warfare plans from the United States.
Everybody accused the Europeans of that. It was actually an American company
and writers in New York would supply him with this blueprints. The U.S.
government knew about it
He got
offers for fighter bombers from both the U.K. and France. For helicopters, for
an atomic reactor from France. For suits against atomic biological and chemical
warfare from the U.K. All of these things took place. Nobody basically said no.
Saddam was not stopped through any denial of equipment he needed. He was
occasionally stopped through policy. But that didn't last long
And
what gave the whole program of acquiring unconventional weapons an impetus was
in the 1970s. The main aim of the West was to pry Saddam away from Russia. And
in order to do that, they were bribing him. They were giving him everything he
wanted. In the 1980s, the reasons changed [for helping Saddam].... Khomeini
appeared on the scene and the West decided that Saddam was the lesser of two
evils. And they continued to support him and give him what he wanted. In this
case, including credit
The
third phase of this relationship was immediately after the cessation of
hostilities in the Iran-Iraq war, when Saddam seemingly came out victorious. All
of a sudden he was sitting on top of a million-man tested army, unconventional
weapons and he was broke, and restless. He became dangerous. He had to do
something in order to survive. This was followed by a series of incidents which
led to a crisis, the discovery of the supergun, the discovery of the atomic
triggers, Saddam threatening the American fleet in the Gulf, things like that.
And the whole thing, of course, culminated in his invasion of Kuwait and we
know what followed that
Regarding
the building of weapons of mass destruction, when it came to an atomic weapon,
why did you still believe that that was okay?
I don't
think there was any Arab in the '70s who did not want Saddam Hussein to have an
atomic weapon. They wanted him to have military parity. Israel had atomic
weapons. The Arabs wanted an Arab country to have atomic weapons. Iraq was the
head of the pack and therefore all Arabs supported Saddam Hussein. I have news
for you: I don't think there are many Arabs at this moment in time -- you can
exclude me out of this statement at this moment in time -- who do not want
Saddam Hussein to have an atomic weapon now. They don't look at it as weapons
of mass destruction. They look at it as transfer of technology. That the Arabs
have done it, the Arabs have joined the modern world. That's the way they see
it. And that pleases them. The fact that Saddam Hussein eliminates people,
kills innocent men, uses a chemical weapon against his own people, is actually
in a way secondary to this image. The Iraqi people are concerned with the
latter. They suffer because of the latter. But the Arab people outside of Iraq
do not suffer because Saddam Hussein eliminates people, because he doesn't
eliminate them. He eliminates Iraqis
So
there is a division between the vision of Saddam Hussein that the Iraqis have
and the vision of Saddam Hussein the rest of the Arabs have. To the rest of the
Arabs, he is the man standing up to West. To the Iraqis, he is the man who
dragged us into this state of misery. Unwillingly
After
the revolution Saddam was still vice president and in July of 1979, he makes a
visit to Amman. And, at the same time, he meets with CIA agents there. What is
he doing? And what are the consequences of this trip?
Before
starting the war with Iran, Saddam Hussein went on a tour of several Arab
countries. His first stop was Amman in Jordan. And there he had two things he
did not have in other places: an indirect line to the Americans through King
Hussein, who has always been a friend of America, and, the possibility of
meeting three senior CIA agents who were there, not to spy on Jordan, but to
use Jordan as a listening post for the rest of the Middle East
There
is absolutely no doubt that Saddam discussed his plans to invade Iran with King
Hussein. There is considerable evidence that he discussed his plans to invade
Iran with the CIA agents that King Hussein prevailed on him to meet with. After
that he flew to Saudi Arabia and there is a record of him telling King Fahd
that he is going to invade Iran, and then after that, I think he had a
stop-over in Kuwait and he did the same thing. What the trips did was to
guarantee him American support in invading Iran. Financial support from the oil
producing countries after their invasion and a channel to buy arms
One of
the great unknowns or perhaps unthought of elements in the war between Iran and
Iraq was the people who fronted for them in purchasing arms. Saddam had
acceptable countries who fronted for him. Jordan bought arms for Saddam. Jordan
is acceptable in the West. Egypt bought arms for Saddam. Egypt was acceptable.
Saudi Arabia bought arms for Saddam. Saudi Arabia was acceptable. Iran did not
have that advantage. Iran had Syria and Libya to front for it, and neither
country was acceptable. So the flow of arms to Iraq was at the much higher
scale. And they were more sophisticated stuff. They got more sophisticated
pieces of armament than the Iranians. And this is why they prevailed in the end
So you
can look at this picture as having begun with this tour that Saddam took
immediately before he invaded Iran. He was protecting his back with
conservative regimes, with pro-West regimes. He was not protecting his back
with the USSR. As a matter of fact the USSR cut off the flow of arms to Iraq
once it invaded Iran and Saddam had to rely exclusively on Western armaments
for three years until the USSR changed its mind and start selling him again.
They saw that they were losing out in Iraq because the West was willing to give
him everything he wanted
At
the previous meeting in 1979, before he took power from Bakr, he also went to
Amman and possibly met some CIA agents
Saddam
took several trips to Jordan and Saudi Arabia immediately before the war with
Iran. The trips had two purposes: to get these countries' support -- and indirectly,
to get the support of the West because these countries are solidly pro-West --
and also to back him in his plans to replace Bakr who was still then president
and could do something to intercept Saddam's plans. That was really the period
of developing the classic alliance of convenience between Saddam and the West.
They were talking to each other through intermediaries, but major
intermediaries. We're talking about kings and presidents
So he
had the guarantee that he would succeed in his efforts. His removal of Bakr
needed a guarantee that no one would act against him. He removed Bakr rather
unceremoniously and made himself president. And he reshaped the Ba'ath Party in
no time at all by executing half of the command of the party. And then he went
to war with Iran, thinking it is going to last a few weeks. Iran will see that
the West is helping me, and they will not fight for long
Well,
the man on the other side thought differently. Khomeini was a religious fanatic
and he was not about to surrender. He was willing to sacrifice hundreds of
thousands of people and Saddam was entrapped because the West -- which never
really liked him -- developed these alliances of convenience. But liking Saddam
was something else. After all Saddam's really not terribly likeable. And in the
final analysis, the West had him where they wanted him. He was pre-occupied in
a war with Iran. Both countries were bleeding to death, economically and
otherwise, and both countries took their eyes off the rest of the Gulf which is
what interested the West in terms of the flow and price of oil
Talk
about his decision to invade Iran. He had just made himself president. It was
his first big step on the world stage. And so far, he's been a master of
control and power within Iraq. Talk about his decision to go to war with Iran
The
invasion of Iran was a huge gamble by Saddam Hussein. He was seriously
concerned that Iraq would disintegrate from within, that certain elements of
the Shia community would side with Khomeini -- and they were already causing
trouble. They were practically an uprising in Najjaf. He had to execute the
leader of the Shias. But Khomeini wouldn't stop. Khomeini was calling for his
overthrow. So, it was really in a way one of the few wars of principle in the
20th century. One man was saying religion is supreme -- that was Khomeini. And
Saddam Hussein was saying the nation-state is supreme. And Saddam Hussein was
proven right
The
cost was horrendous. Both countries were bled to death. And a friend of mine
interviewed Saddam Hussein and he said in the interview -- it was during the
war with Iran -- that if the superpowers wanted this war to stop, they would
stop it. He became aware that he was in a trap. There is a great deal to show
that the United States wanted both sides weakened. They didn't like Khomeini.
They didn't like Saddam. They sold stuff to Saddam, they sold stuff to Khomeini
secretly. They supplied information to both sides at different stages of the
game. They didn't want either side to lose and they didn't want either side to
win. And that is what happened
In
the early 1980s -- a time when Saddam thought the war with Iran would soon be
over -- this is a time when you, again, had a personal involvement with the
regime. How did you become involved again, and what was your assignment? Why
did you accept?
Well,
in the case of my involvement with Iraq in the early 1980s, Iraq came to me and
asked me to help them after the original group I worked with was out of the
picture. I accepted for a very simple reason, for the same reason the United
States supported him against Iran -- I thought he was the lesser evil. When it
came to him and Khomeini, I wanted Saddam to come out ahead or to win. There
are several reasons. I am an Arab, one. And the second one, I do not believe in
religious movements. I was afraid that the Khomeini movement might prevail and
take over the Middle East. And it was, if you wish, an alliance of convenience
between me and Saddam. I was not taken with Saddam, but I wanted Khomeini to
lose, and that is why I accepted to work with him
And I
worked in a capacity of helping him in his relations with the United States on
two levels. One, creating a certain image for him in the United States by
sending certain members of the press to Iraq to see him. And he was available
and willing. And the second, by laying the ground for greater economic
cooperation and things like opening an office for an American bank in Baghdad.
It was image building. It was smoothing the way, because the two countries
didn't have diplomatic relations between them. And I'd like to think it was
successful. However it didn't last long, because I did walk out after his first
use of chemical weapons
There
were rumors that Saddam was using chemical weapons. When they were eventually
verified and it was proven that he was using chemical weapons against both Iran
and the Kurds in the north, it was a matter of conscience. I could no longer be
associated with him, and I walked out, and I walked out with [them] owing me
more money than I'll ever be worth. And I will never get. But that was a
personal decision I had to make, and I made it
And
to what extent did you regret your involvement with the regime, not just this
time, but also back in the 1970s?
Well,
people who support dictators always come round to regretting it, unfortunately.
In the 1970s, we supported him because the Arabs were defeated and humiliated
in 1967, and we wanted one Arab country to move ahead and be strong,
economically and militarily. And we saw Iraq as that one country. That's why we
supported him. We were not blind to what he was
The
scale tipped in other directions. He became more dictatorial with time. He
eliminated more people with time. And he stopped delivering the benefits to the
Iraqi people with time. This sounds like a German talking about aiding and
abetting the, rise of Hitler -- it is pretty much the same -- or somebody
helping Stalin get there. But, in my case, it was better late than never and I
walked out
But, we
had no one to look to. There was a vacuum in Arab leadership, particularly
after Nasser died. There was no Arab leader that my generation could look to.
And suddenly there was this fellow in Iraq in a very serious way. He
represented potential. And we loved the idea of him being there, because we
looked at Egypt, it wasn't working. We looked at Saudi Arabia, they were in
another century. We looked at Arab countries, they are not capable of anything.
Iraq had the potential. Suddenly had a man at the helm who could realise that
potential. And that was Saddam Hussein. And believe me, he came very close,
let's make no mistake about that. Saddam Hussein came very close to realizing
the potential of Iraq and dragging it into the 20th century
At
times it seemed the U.S. was giving Saddam mixed signals in the 1980s. Tell us
the story of Saddam's meeting with a consultant and how Saddam was trying to
understand the U.S. What does it reveal about his perceptions of America
Saddam
Hussein is a learner. He used to read a great deal and he used to listen to
people a great deal. He never told them when he was taking something away from
what they were saying. But he did, and in this case, he summoned a Lebanese
journalist to talk to him about the workings of the U.S. governmental system --
checks and balances, if you wish. And the Lebanese journalist was taken aback
by his question -- "Explain to me the system of checks and balances of the
United States." He tried his best to explain it to him. And the meeting
went on for over an hour. And Saddam listened very attentively. At the end of
it he said, "If power is divided in America, who do we deal with
then?" And the man, afraid like everybody who sees Saddam, looked at him
and said, "Mr. President, I don't think you have any choice. You have to
deal with the executive branch." At which point, Saddam supposedly shook
his head from side to side and he said, "But they lie to me all the
time." This is an example of the misgivings Saddam Hussein had about the
United States
There
was a love-hate relationship between the two. He loved American technology --
Saddam is enamored with technology anyway -- and he decided very early in his
career that certain types of technology could only be supplied by the United
States of America. So in a way, he related to the United States, he had
affection for the United States and what the United States could provide.
Simultaneously he never trusted them politically. He told many journalists who
saw him that America's policy towards the Middle East is shortsighted, because
there are more Arabs than Israelis, the Arabs were wealthier, and America
should throw its lot with the Arabs. This is where Saddam Hussein, the
uneducated man, comes into play. Because a really savvy politician would know
better, would know that the United States could not change its policy towards
the Middle East. But Saddam didn't know that. He's still bright, but there are
holes in his education which show when people talk to him
After
the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam is trying to figure out what the U.S.
policy is, or, how there seemed to be different policies from the Congress and
from the executive branch. What was Saddam's view of the box he was in and what
was going on?
We
don't know how much money Saddam Hussein owed after the war with Iran ended.
Estimates ranged between $65 billion and $100 billion. It was a great deal of
money. He told the Iraqi people that he won the war. And the Iraqi people
wanted the fruits of victory and he couldn't deliver. He counted on the Arab
countries -- Saudi Arabia and Kuwait -- to help him out. They didn't help him
out. And suddenly on top of that, there was a change in U.S. policy. Instead of
supporting him, providing him with greater credit, there was criticism about his
human rights policies which were always atrocious, but it was more vociferous
than it was before. They were talking about supporting the Kurds. There was
talk about investigating what had happened in the past
All of
a sudden the custom and excise people throughout Europe became extra clever and
were discovering shipments of all types of things to Iraq -- the bits for the
supergun, the triggers. Superguns were discovered all over the place as a
matter of fact in about five different countries
And
Saddam felt beleaguered. He didn't feel this was accidental. He felt that the
West knew that he was weak, and this was an opportunity to weaken him further
or get rid of him. He told this to Yasser Arafat; he told him there is a
conspiracy against Iraq and he told this to Mubarak. He believed in the
conspiracy theory, so in his own mind what he was fighting was a conspiracy
The
ideal thing for Saddam to do, and what I personally believe he wanted to do,
was to go to war with Israel, briefly, for about a week, two weeks. Get
pounded, but embarrass the rest of Arab states into giving him loads of money
to tide him over this financial problem. All of a sudden Kuwait, as far as
Saddam is concerned, gets in the way. How did Kuwait get in the way? Saddam's
only income was from oil and Kuwait was pumping over its OPEC quota and the
price of oil was collapsing. Every time the price of oil fell by one dollar,
Iraq lost a billion dollars in income. And Saddam decided Kuwait couldn't
possibly be doing this on its own. No way. Kuwait didn't need the money. Its
own income was enough if it had investment in the West which was producing
income. Why is Kuwait doing this?
And
because of his previous involvement in 1963 when Kuwait was used as a post by
the CIA to help the Ba'ath Party overthrow Kassem, Saddam decided Kuwait is
being used again to change the Iraqi government. This time against me, last
time I was on the other side. This time they are using it against me. And
instead of directing his efforts into starting a war with Israel, he invaded
Kuwait. And once again, like all intelligent people without education, when
they make a mistake, they make them really big
Did
he expect the U.S. to respond?
No, he
did not expect the United States to respond to his invasion of Kuwait the way it
did. He personally analyzed the situation, had that famous meeting with
American Ambassador April Glaspie in Baghdad. And he believed the United States
gave him a green light to occupy Kuwait. Well, that shows Saddam's lack of
education because there was no way the United States was going to allow Saddam
Hussein to control the flow and price of oil in the Middle East. Impossible.
And there is evidence that people within his inner circle told him not to do it
and he did it. He thought he would bargain
This is
where, again, you see Saddam for what he is. Saddam is making an A-bomb, but
Saddam comes from the small village of Al Awja. When you talk about Saddam
being schizophrenic or having a split personality, it is not necessarily
physiological, it is sociological. One foot is in the 17th century in Al Awja,
and the other foot is in the 20th century making an A-bomb. He invaded Kuwait
and thought, "Good I have Kuwait, I'm going to bargain with the United
States." Well the United States made its position clear. There is no
bargaining about the withdrawal from Kuwait, fella, you get out of Kuwait. No
conditions. No rewards. Nothing. That he couldn't understand. And he was caught
After
the Gulf War, there were the upprisings in the south, and in the north and the
U.S. didn't act. What do you think he thought of the U.S. decision not to
support the rebellion? Do you think he respected that?
I think
Saddam and the United States very often have a commonality which bonds them
together and that is simply this: That without Saddam Hussein, Iraq would
disintegrate into several countries and make more trouble for the rest of the
Middle East. I know no Iraqi who believes that -- whether Sunni, Shia or Kurd.
The American administration believes that however, and Saddam Hussein believes
that. When the rebellion started against Saddam in 1991, that danger loomed.
The United States helped Saddam crush that rebellion. They didn't only stand
by, on occasions they stopped the rebels from reaching arms depots to arm
themselves. On other occasions, American planes flew over Saddam's helicopters
while they were shooting the rebels. On a third occasion, they gave his
Republican Guards safe passage through American lines to reach a certain rebel
position
The
American administration was afraid that Iraq will disintegrate. They had no
plan for what might follow Saddam Hussein. And certainly President Bush was
explicit on that subject, saying he did not want to be mired in Iraqi internal
affairs -- until he was forced into getting into Iraq by television and the
pictures of the poor Kurds. And so that rebellion failed
This
bond between Saddam Hussein and the United States exists to this day. They are
the two parties that believe Saddam Hussein's disappearance would cause huge
problems. In the case of the United States, there are huge problems that we
want to solve before we think seriously of moving him. In the case of Saddam
Hussein, he keeps this issue alive, saying, "You need me, you know."
Again, the case of the lesser evil as it was when he fought Khomeini
And
yet throughout the 1990s, we have seen several attempts by the U.S. to change
the regime. And the U.S. was left with the situation where they had demonized
this man to such an extent it was a political embarrassment to have him survive.
How effective have U.S. actions to remove Saddam in the 1990s been?
America's
actions against Saddam Hussein since the Gulf War in terms of removing him have
been very weak indeed. Among other things Saddam had eliminated so many people
in Iraq, probably by accident he eliminated all the CIA agents operating under
ethnic cover. He probably didn't know they were CIA agents. I don't think there
have been any really serious attempts by the United States of America to remove
Saddam. I think there have been some attempts by people who are cooperating
with the United States to remove Saddam. That is a completely different matter.
Because they take two completely different forms
The
United States had two opportunities. One, in 1991, they could have helped the rebels
and removed him, and they refused to do that. And one, in 1995, when the Kurds
rose and with other elements opposed to Saddam, defeated a whole Iraqi division
and the Iraqi army was going to disintegrate practically and the United States
withheld support. The United States is caught in this position of not having a
plan for what follows Saddam
And as
one of the leaders of the Iraqi opposition said, they want Saddamism without
Saddam. They have demonized Saddam the person, but they're not necessarily opposed
to the regime. They have never been the champions of human rights in the Middle
East. Once Saddam used chemical weapons against the Kurds in Halabja, the U.S.
War College issued a 40-some page report saying it wasn't Saddam's chemicals
that killed the people of Halabja, it was Iranian chemicals that killed the
people of Halabja. I can't believe myself that the U.S. War College issued that
report without the sanction of people higher up in the U.S. government
After
the Gulf War and the Iran-Iraq War, how did Saddam manage to keep control
inside the country? And what does it tell us about the effectiveness of the
system that he set up back in the early 1970s?
Saddam's
control of Iraq is not difficult to understand. He has a very, very elaborate
security apparatus -- about six elements. Internal security intelligence,
special presidential security, you name it, he has it. It probably costs the
government more money than anything else in the country. He had created an army
within the general Iraqi army, the Republican Guard. The Republican Guard is
not a professional army, it's an ideological army, which owes its allegiance to
Saddam himself
So, you
have the security systems, you have the army, you have members of his family in
key positions in both systems, and in the rest of the country. And you have
whatever remains of the Ba'ath Party in the country, which is still beholden to
him. When you multiply the numbers of people who work directly for Saddam
Hussein by six or seven, the number of people who depend on them -- I mean
families in the Middle East are large as we know -- then you have a
constituency of somewhere between 20 to 30 percent of the population of Iraq.
You can run a country through these numbers very easily. This is not a difficult
proposition. But if you're talking about security in terms of doing anything
against him, he has taken huge steps to guarantee that nothing could possibly
happen against him
Generals
are not left in the same position for a long time. Security people are not left
in the same position for a long time. Fathers spy on sons. Members of the
family are under an obligation to spy on other members of the family. Students
spy on teachers. It is persuasive, it is suffocating. An Iraqi opposition
personality told me that no meeting involving more than three people can take
place in Iraq without Saddam Hussein knowing about it. This is how tight it is
within the country
Yet
he himself now is moving around and--
He is
moving around considerably. He never sleeps in the same place. You never know
where he is having his dinner because dinner is prepared in five or six
different places. He has doubles who stand in for him on occasions. There are
two or three people who know of his movements and it is his sons and one other
guy who is his secretary. He has a food taster. You know this business of
Saddam always wearing hats? They are all bullet proof, they are lined with
Kevlar inside, just in case there is a sniper in a building who is about to
shoot him. Even the straw hat that he wears occasionally is lined with Kevlar.
And, he looks more sturdy than he is, he looks rounder than he is, because he
is wearing a bulletproof vest
But
that's if you got to him. The business of getting to him is almost impossible.
You have to go through so many things and so many stages. People who see Saddam
Hussein nowadays have to be X-rayed, because he's always afraid that they've
swallowed some kind of explosive that will detonate and take him with them
So
what does the future hold? Where do we go from here?
I think
where we go from here is to make a deal directly with the Iraqi people. The
only salvation for Iraq and for Western policy towards Iraq is to make a direct
deal with the Iraqi people, openly. To tell the people who guarantee Saddam's
continuance that they would not suffer if there is a change in the regime. To
tell the Iraqi people that they would have more to eat and more medicine. To
tell the Sunnis that they would not suffer under the Shias. To ask the
neighbors not to interfere in Iraq. To give them an incentive to get rid of the
man. So far, neither the small organizations under Saddam nor the Iraqi people
in general have been offered an incentive to change him. So far U.S. policy
depends on various opposition groups which contain many honorable men, but who
have absolutely no following within the country. As a matter of fact, I saw a
picture of them standing with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and I
tried to do a mental calculation of how many followers within Iraq they have --
there were about 12 of them. And I decided that they could muster up about
5,000 people all together
Do
you think he was surprised that America allowed him to survive?
I think
he was very surprised that America allowed him to survive, because it is
something that is strange to his nature. He would not have allowed his enemy to
survive, and he expects everybody to behave the way he behaves. So this was a
great big present that was most unexpected. But the moment he grabbed it, he
started planning for the future
How
did he plan for the future?
Well,
first, he had to re-establish internal control within the country. The second
thing is to say that what happened is done, and let us start all over again.
What he didn't realize is that the U.N. resolutions that were enacted didn't
allow him to start all over again that fast, and that the resolutions may be
subject to interpretation that would cripple him economically and politically
for the foreseeable future
...
Talk a bit about the way he crushed that 1991 rebellion after the Gulf War.
Once he knew that he had the freedom to do it, he was brutal
He
crushed the rebellion totally and completely. He was extremely successful in
crushing the rebellion in 1991. And, except for Kurdistan, he eliminated the sources
of the rebellion. In Kurdistan, he thought he would do a deal, since he
couldn't get away with crushing the leadership of the Kurdish people. But in
other places, in the Shia south, he completely crushed the rebellion. He
eliminated all elements that were involved in the rebellion. He moved the
center of power completely, putting it in the hands of the Republican Guard --
immediately and directly under his own control. So this was another transfer of
power. He himself, was now responsible for every single move that affected the
security of the Iraqi state
There
are security centers throughout Iraq. The people heading these security centers
distributed tapes of executions, of people disappearing, of people being
demoted, of people being humiliated. They showed the tapes to the population to
frighten the people. They were telling the people, "This is what would
happen to you if you oppose Saddam."
Right
after the war, the Bush administration started the policy of containment, and
of keeping the sanctions. Saddam didn't expect this. He thought that he would
be brought back in
Saddam
Hussein did not expect the sanctions to last as long as they have. The U.N.
resolutions containing the articles of the sanctions are, by nature, a little
vague, and subject to interpretation. He interpreted them in the way most
favorable way to him. The United States and the U.K. interpreted them the
opposite way, with France, China, and Russia in the middle. He thought they
would come in, inspect the country, find what they find, destroy it, and then
they would get out, and everything would be done and finished. The United
States kept saying, no, there is more, we have to find it, where did you get
it, who gave it to you, how did they give it to you? Of course, this extended
it. In a way, it was actually changing the guidelines. There is nothing in the
resolutions, for example, about some of the searches. Some of them were an
affront to Iraqi dignity -- there's no doubt about it -- going into his
palaces, and inspecting the place where he himself lived. That was something
completely new to him
Why
would he have allowed the inspectors in at all?
He
allowed the United Nations inspectors in because he thought this was going to
be short-lived: "I can satisfy them, I can fool them, I can present them
with a great deal." They'd go home happy, saying they'd discovered
everything there is to discover in Iraq. He had no idea that they would look
for the sources of this material. And when they started looking, it became
staggeringly obvious to them that there is more to the program than they had
originally thought. For example, in the most dramatic example, before the
inspection started, everybody thought Saddam was five or six years from making
an atomic bomb. After the inspections started, the United Nations discovered he
was only six months away from making an atomic bomb
How
would he fool them?
Well,
it's a huge country. He planned bunkers and laboratories, and attached them to
schools and to innocent organizations all over the country. The scientists and
engineers working for him did not operate from one single spot. They had
300-400 places from which they operated. The labs needed for chemical and
biological warfare are very small, and you can hide them. They can be part of a
university's labs. The safety equipment needed can expose the lab, because you
have to have a great deal of it. But the labs themselves are easy to hide. The
equipment itself is not that bulky, or that expensive. As long as you have
people underground who are willing to make chemical and biological weapons,
you'd be able to make them
We
talked about the beginning of official opposition in the Iraqi National
Congress, the INC, around 1992 and 1993, when they had their first and second
meetings. What was Saddam's feeling about this opposition? Did he take it
seriously at that time?
At the
very beginning, he took the opposition seriously. He thought that, with the
U.S. backing, the opposition would act as a magnet for people within his
regimes, and would truly undermine him. But the opposition failed to do that.
The opposition was made up of the wrong people, people who had not been to Iraq
for a long time, so they didn't know the people inside. They did not want to
contact the people inside, or rely on the people inside Iraq to change Saddam's
regime, because the people inside would be competition for leadership against
them. They wanted to do it themselves. This was very selfish, and it backfired.
In time, he stopped fearing the opposition, because the opposition proved to be
ineffectual. They were not able to organize, and they were quarrelling among
themselves. There was considerable corruption among the ranks of the opposition
and Saddam said, "This is wonderful. With enemies like this, I can sleep
comfortably."
I
want to talk about the INC attack of 1995. Did they have some success, or did
you see that as a direct threat?
The
1995 attacks of the INC were initially very successful. Many Iraqi soldiers
surrendered to them, and indeed it was a major challenge to Saddam, but he is
wily. He divided the ranks of the opposition, and it fell apart. They were not
defeated on the battlefield; they just couldn't continue. This was a great coup
for Saddam, and, of course, this will help him in the future, because no Iraqi
soldier is going to defect to a side that cannot maintain an attack against
Saddam. Why would I defect to a group of losers, who can't agree among
themselves as to what should be done? Initially, it stood a chance of
attracting more and more Iraqi soldiers, and of undoing the whole regime, but
they couldn't maintain it
You
must have known that the U.S. did not agree to support that invasion.... What
do you think that told them about American intentions?
Saddam
reads America's intentions better than America reads Saddam's intentions.
Saddam knows that America does not want a fragmented, divided Iraq. Therefore,
in the final analysis, America will opt for him. There was a chance that this
attack from the north would create a divided Iraq, or a civil war in the
country, because it was made up mostly of Kurdish and Shia elements. Saddam
knew the United States would come to his rescue, and not support the attack. He
didn't know how they would do it. The way they did it was rather callous. They
really undermined the opposition, not in terms of the attack itself, but on a
long-term basis. They embarrassed the opposition, and made them look like
fools. They initiated something they could not continue, or finalize
Shortly
after, he suffered a personal blow when his two sons-in-law left. Why did they
leave, and what do you think that meant to Saddam?
Hussein
Kamel, one of Saddam Hussein's (ex) sons-in-law
Saddam's
sons-in-law and daughters defected to Jordan because of a family quarrel. They
couldn't get along with his son. But we're talking about two important people
-- one of them the head of the unconventional weapons program, and the second
one was head of security -- so they had a considerable amount of information
with them when they defected. That was a severe blow to Saddam, both in terms
of his modern thinking, which is behind making unconventional weapons, and in
terms of the tribal half of his nature. "How dare anyone from within my
tribe betray me? This is my son-in-law and cousin, and he betrayed me." Of
course, they gave all the information they had, both to the United Nations and
the United States, and to everyone else who was willing to receive it. This was
damaging, because at that moment, Iraq was about to be declared free of
unconventional weapons by U.N. inspectors. All of a sudden, there is Saddam's
son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, standing in front of them, saying, "I have
documents that can prove that your inspection has not uncovered everything Saddam
has. He has considerably more than this." They looked at it, and they were
just absolutely aghast, and said, "Let's start all over again."
I've
heard that really that was the lowest point
The
defection of his sons-in-law was the point that undermined Saddam the most. It
was the point that eliminated any chance of the sanctions being lifted without
a truly clean bill of health -- and we assume that is impossible. Saddam will
always try to keep some of these weapons to protect himself. So it's a never-ending
circle
Why
would he want to? What's the point?
It is
protection for Saddam to have biological and chemical weapons, because, in the
final analysis, if pressed, if he is surrounded in Baghdad, he will threaten to
use them. He's capable of that. This is a sort of Samson complex -- if you push
me too hard, I'll bring the house down, on myself and on everyone else.
Washington realizes that this is a possibility. For obvious reasons, it's not
talked about openly. No one in Washington wants to tell the American people
that Saddam is still capable of blackmailing us. They're acting as if he is
capable of blackmailing them, but they are not going to admit it openly
It's
hard for people to understand why somebody would go down and take a lot of the
people with him, and use chemical weapons as a final act of vengeance. Why
would Saddam do that?
Saddam
doesn't want to use chemical weapons. But, if he knows he's going to go down, I
am sure that he is capable of using them. You are not going to get Saddam
Hussein alive. Saddam Hussein will only leave Iraq as a dead person. He won't
go into exile in the Riviera. He's gone beyond that point. He knows that he is
dead the moment his regime is over -- so why not punish them, why not punish
them for doing this to me? He's always shaken the state to its roots when
threatened. He's always taken his colleagues and executed them, at any hint of
conspiracy or threat to the regime. He got rid of his brother, who was the head
of security, over a family feud, and threatened the future of the state,
because he could not tolerate being challenged. This would be the same kind of
thing
The
son-in-law story -- that was also a key point at which Saddam lost King Hussein
as an ally
Jordan
gave Saddam's sons-in-law and their families sanctuary, and they were releasing
information to the United Nations and the United States. That did not endear
King Hussein to Saddam. He saw it as an act of betrayal. But Saddam is very
practical. He didn't make a fuss out of that. He didn't like it, and it was the
end of a friendship with King Hussein. But economic relations and trade
relations with Jordan continued. Of course, it is because they continued that
he finally was able to entice his sons-in-law back to Iraq, where they
eventually met their deaths
How
did that happen? For most people, it's just unbelievable that they would go
back. He made phone calls, he guaranteed their safety..
Saddam
told his sons-in-law that, if they came back to Iraq, they would be completely
safe. They foolishly believed Saddam. So, as military officers, they donned
their uniforms, and they went back to Iraq. The moment they entered Iraq, they
were separated from their families. Their families were taken to Baghdad, and
they were taken out of the city. Like Saddam, they are very tribal, so they
surrounded themselves with bodyguards, not trusting him completely. Two days
later, there was an attack on the house by members of the family, to avenge the
family honor. So Saddam claimed that he kept his word, as the chief of the armed
forces, as the president of Iraq, that he would do nothing to them. So, when it
was finally done, the attack succeeded and they were captured and killed.
Saddam said, "I didn't go back on my word. This happened according to
tribal tradition. The family had to avenge itself. The family had to recover
its honor." That's how he explained what he did to them
What
do we know about him promising his daughters that their husbands would not be..
We
don't know a great deal about the messages that went back and forth between
Saddam, his daughters and his sons-in-law. But they did definitely contain a
guarantee that no harm would become them. The sons-in-law, of course, are dead
now, murdered by other members of the family. The daughters are alive, but they
have not been seen in public since. They're under lock and key, and I
understand that he does not see them personally, because they, too, betrayed
him. But even Saddam stops at a certain point, and I guess that point is not
killing his own daughters
After
that, the big coup is uncovered. He then goes up to Irbil. It's as if he's
getting revenge on people who betrayed him, and he goes to the north, and
attacks the INC in August 1997
He was
invited to the north by one of the Kurdish factions. He has always maintained contact
with the two leading Kurdish groups, the Kurdish Democratic Party, and the
Popular Union of Kurdistan. He plays them against each other. Unfortunately for
the Iraqi people, they accept help and money from Saddam. When it suits him, he
supports one side, and when it suits him, he supports the other side. The
United States has not been able to prevail on these two groups to come
together, to end their feuding, and to unite against Saddam. The Kurds don't
trust the United States a great deal, because historically, they have been let
down several times, so they, themselves, are in the business of keeping an open
door to Saddam to deceive them
The
Kurds in Northern Iraq receive money from the United States. At the same time,
they receive money from Saddam, and they receive money from Iran. So they trade
and smuggle goods and oil to Turkey, and make money out of that. Actually,
they're in very good shape financially. Everybody is courting them, and paying
them money, and they get part of the income of the oil-for-food program, so
they're doing very well. The one thing they have not managed to do is to become
an effective force against Saddam by uniting and confronting him, and by
allowing other opposition groups to use Iraqi Kurdistan as a staging area for forays
against Saddam. They have not allowed that to happen, because they accuse the
United States of not being true to any plan calling for that
I
personally do not believe that at this time Saddam Hussein wants to reassert
his control in Kurdistan, because if he does, all he is buying is trouble. The
Kurds will be within Iraq, and they're the ones in the mountains, where his
army is not that effective. The Kurds could cause him a lot of trouble. He is
better off drawing a line between himself and the Kurds for the time being, and
keeping them separate. Otherwise, he'd have to commit his armed forces. He
would have a civil war on his hands. He would spend all the money and
ammunition he has against them. The way it is now, he is capable of influencing
what the Kurds do at any juncture
But
in August of 1996, he went into Irbil. I know he was invited up there. But, at
the time, did he see that as a plan?
Saddam
sees everything in very many ways, including a highly personal way. For him to
go to Irbil in 1996 was a triumph, and it was a triumph against the United
States. "I'm back north in my country, against your wishes. I am back
because the Kurds invited me. I am back, and alive, in the city of Irbil that
you have mentioned so often in your pronouncements about protecting the Kurds.
I am here."
It was
a huge ego trip for him, and of course he used it. And then, he pulls back from
that, and he goes back to his original position. But he's made his point -- he
challenged the United States successfully in the north. He showed them that
they cannot rely on the Kurds. This is a very, very big point, because this is
one of the two major groups actually capable of acting in concert to topple
him, the Kurds in the north, and the Shias in the south. The people outside don't
have any followers. These are the two groups that have followers within Iraq
1998
is becoming much more confrontational in Kurdistan. Had he concluded that
Kurdistan was never going to lead to the lifting of sanctions?
I think
that, in 1997 and 1998, Saddam Hussein was handed a victory. UNSCOM was
operating within Iraq, but the pronouncements coming out of Washington and
London were completely different. The pronouncements were saying, sanctions
will not be lifted unless Saddam Hussein is removed. He used that very
successfully to challenge UNSCOM, to say, "Why should I cooperate with you
to bring about my own downfall? There is nothing to be gained by cooperating
with UNSCOM." He convinced his own people of that. He convinced the Arab
people of that, and he convinced many people in the world of that. He
practically convinced the French of that. You know the French spoke out, and
said there is nothing in the U.N. resolutions about removing Saddam Hussein
So the
people who are speaking for the U.S. and the U.K. governments tripped
themselves by openly advocating the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Through that,
they undermined the U.N. inspectors, and allowed Saddam Hussein to ask for
their withdrawal
Let's
talk some about the increasing complication with the U.N. By the late 1980s,
1990s, had Saddam concluded that working through UNSCOM was not going to lead
to sanctions being lifted?
By the
late 1990s, Saddam Hussein decided that cooperating with UNSCOM was not going
to help him, that it was not going to lead to the sanctions being lifted, that
it was the policymakers in Washington and London who would decide when the
sanctions were to be lifted
Then
little things enabled him to ask for the withdrawal of UNSCOM. He had
maintained all along that UNSCOM was full of spies, and all of a sudden some
officers in UNSCOM go on television and say, "Yes, we were spying for the
United States, yes, we were cooperating with Israel." Saddam Hussein must
have been full of joy. He said, "Look at it. I was telling the truth. Get out
of here. We will not allow Israeli spies to operate within Iraq. We will not
allow CIA spies to operate within Iraq." Everybody suspected that there
were some spies in UNSCOM. But the way it came out, it certainly enhanced his
image, with his people, and with the Arab people overall. It considerably
undermined the image of UNSCOM. UNSCOM was finished after it became clear that
it had been infiltrated by all of these intelligence services. It had no
credibility
Did
Saddam overplay his hand? In December 1998, right after the inspectors pulled
out, he was hit very hard with Desert Fox
Desert
Fox and similar operations do not faze Saddam Hussein. He doesn't care. If you
kill another hundred Iraqi soldiers, it's no skin off his nose. If you hit him
directly, if you threaten to topple him, if you attack him in Baghdad, that is
a completely different matter. But these attacks do not threaten to topple him.
After he asked UNSCOM to leave, the Iraqi Liberation Act was passed, but that
doesn't matter, either. That is formalizing something that has been taking
place over time -- the United States was supporting the Iraqi opposition before
that. They didn't call it the Iraqi Liberation Act, but it doesn't matter what
you call it, if the end result is the same. It's the same group of people, and
they haven't produced any results. Why should they produce results just because
we call it the Iraqi Liberation Act? The Iraqi Liberation Act is to the credit
of some U.S. senators for internal consumption. But in terms of what the United
States government was doing towards Iraq, it changed absolutely nothing. Now
they're claiming that the United States is willing to train some Iraqis in some
kind of military establishments to eventually fight against Saddam
And
when you ask the Iraqi opposition, as I did recently, how many of your people
are being trained right now, the answer was four. This is not serious. This is
the way for the United States government to say, "We are complying with
the articles of the Iraqi Liberation Act," without doing anything. Four
people are not going to overthrow the Saddam regime
Throughout
1999, there were continual air strikes against him. Do these attacks somehow
serve a purpose for him?
Attacking
does serve Saddam Hussein's purpose, because it shows he is standing up, he is
resisting. He is still telling the people, "You cannot fly over my
country." It gives him a psychological lift. It is psychological for the
Iraqi people, to think, "There is a reason behind what is happening to us.
It is because we have enemies, enemies who are attacking our military
installations and denying us food, denying us medicine, and making our life
miserable. It is the same group of people." So you identify one with the
other, and you get mileage out of it, and he is doing that. Above all, this
enhances Saddam's image with the Arab people. Saddam Hussein is now the only
Arab leader who has a following outside his own country
Saddam
Hussein is very popular with the people in Jordan. Saddam Hussein is very
popular with the Palestinian people. Saddam Hussein is very popular with the
people in Syria. Saddam Hussein is very popular with college students in Cairo
and other places in Egypt. Saddam Hussein is standing up to the West. He has
survived for nine years. He is a hero. He is not winning. But the mere fact
that he survives, that he continues, is enough to make him a hero. And people
like it. They don't live under Saddam Hussein, so they don't suffer from his
actions the way the Iraqi people suffer. All they see is the fact that he is
standing up to the West, and they like that
What
happened to his dream that Iraq could be a modern secular advanced Arab
country? Does he still have that dream?..
If
Saddam has any dreams to lead the Arabs, they're certainly on the back burner.
His immediate purpose now is to survive -- he cannot think beyond that. But
mere survival is a victory. His mere survival on a day-to-day basis is a
victory, and now it is much more difficult to remove him than it was in 1991.
In 1991, people could have marched to Baghdad, removed Saddam Hussein, and say,
"This is the way we punish people who invade Kuwait." Now that is
gone. You can't use that reason to go into Baghdad. Why haven't you used it for
the past nine years? If you want to use it now, it doesn't make sense. Now it
is simply a case of punishing an Arab leader and punishing an Arab country. The
Arabs quarrel and kiss and make up. They believe in making up, they believe in
forgetting and forgiving. They cannot understand that the West persists in
punishing the Iraqi people because of Saddam Hussein. As far as most Arabs are
concerned, this is over and done with. He's been punished enough. "Get out
of the Middle East, stop punishing our brothers, Arab brothers, Muslim
brothers. We love them. Leave us alone, please, and stop this business."
And it has made the United States and Britain very unpopular in certain
quarters
What
about the oil-for-food program?
Saddam
saw an opportunity in November, 1998, when oil prices went up, to force the
situation of the oil-for-food program -- he insists that the sanctions should
be lifted immediately. And with the price of oil going up, he decided to
withhold his oil. So the price of oil increased further, and it actually
threatened Western economies in a small way. The oil price increase certainly
contributes to inflation, and brings the whole issue of Iraqi oil, the
relationship, and the sanctions to the fore again. Saddam wants this issue in
the limelight. He wants people to discuss it. He wants the pope to discuss it.
He wants the United Nations to discuss it. He wants the French and Russians and
Chinese to discuss it. He is essentially saying that everyone in the world
agrees that the sanctions should be lifted -- except the United States and
Britain. And the more he dramatizes this, the more it is a subject for
discussion, and the more people of the world are aware of it. He's a master
tactician. It's a master stroke, make no mistake about it. The timing is absolutely
perfect
Most
of this past year he's been lying pretty low and quiet. What has he been up to?
For the
past year, Saddam has been consolidating his position. He has achieved a major
victory in forcing the United Nations to withdraw from Iraq, and still being
able to sell oil. He has used the income from oil to consolidate his position
anew. There is only so much he can do if he decides everything that happens in
Iraq. He may not show the strain publicly. But once in a while, we see on
Baghdad television that he has lost a great deal of weight. That is another way
of judging whether the strain is showing or not. Saddam has lost over 20
pounds. He's much thinner, and he doesn't move with the agility that he had in
the past. He has a very bad back problem. So it is beginning to show. We don't
know what he's up to. He's a tactician, not a strategist, and you can't read
him way ahead of time. But he is a master tactician, waiting for an opportunity
And,
unfortunately, over the years we have provided him with opportunity after
opportunity to actually undermine the work of the United Nations, and to score
victories against the people who would like to see him removed. The Iraqi
opposition's behavior has provided him with many victories, because they cannot
unite, they cannot act in unison. They are ineffective, obviously divided, and
not worthy of really serious support. The United States and Britain provided
him with victories when they openly asked for his removal, and there is nothing
in U.N. resolutions about that. Then the United Nations provided him with
another victory, when it was discovered that most of the inspectors were indeed
spies. He has used all of the opportunities effectively. No one would have
thought five years ago that Saddam Hussein would be able to ask the United
Nations to leave and to be exporting oil at the same time, and he's doing that
What
kind of thought process went into your own decision to remove yourself from
that regime? Was it an easy decision? What kind of effect did it have on you
personally?
Working
with Saddam's regime was always a very difficult proposition, because I was not
blind to what Saddam was. I knew what he was, but the balance was in his favor.
He was still doing a great deal for Iraq, and indirectly, he was still doing a
great deal for the Arab people. He was certainly moving towards obtaining
military parity with Israel, which interested all the Arabs of my generation --
we wanted that to happen. In the early 1980s, the balance tipped in the other
directions. His criminality increased, and his ability to deliver to the Iraqi
people and to the Arab people decreased. He got them involved in a war with
Iran, and the whole business of power went to his head -- the maxim of power
corrupting, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. Eliminating people became
more frequent, and imprisoning people became more frequent. The straw that
broke the camel's back was when he started using chemical weapons almost
indiscriminately. I could not condone that. I could not accept that. That
really seriously tipped the scales against him
And I
thought whatever promise he represented was absolutely eroded by this
criminality inherent in his person, and I could not work with him anymore
Was
it hard to break away?
It was
very hard for me to break away because there was no other country in the Middle
East that could encapsulate Arab hopes -- that was gone forever, unless one
wanted to back Islamic fundamentalism. And I wasn't ready to do that. So on a
national, Arab basis, it was very difficult for me to break away. And on a
personal basis, it was also very difficult for me to break away, because I
supplied television and cinema film to the Iraqi government, and they owed me a
great deal of money. But the decision had to be made, and I made it. I just
walked out overnight, and I've never been to Baghdad again
Are
you afraid of them?
Are you
asking whether making this program or writing Saddam's biography endangers my
life? If speaking out for the rights and dignity of the Iraqi people endangers
my life, then perhaps it does. But what a way to go. Glory be
When
you see pictures of him today, and compare that to the man that you believed
in, what do you think of him?
When I
see Saddam today, and think of what he represented at the beginning, I wish I
could issue a warning to people who overlook the mistakes of dictators because
they think dictators can correct their own mistakes. Dictators don't get better
with time, they get worse with time. We overlooked his mistakes because we
thought he promised something. And with time, we discovered that his mistakes
grew larger, and the promise became smaller and smaller
What
is the most likely way in which Saddam is going to go?
Saddam
Hussein will go one way, and one way only -- violently -- either through a coup
d'etat or an assassination. The circle around Saddam Hussein is becoming
smaller and smaller. There are fewer people he trusts, and they're his family.
But eventually the time will come where some officer, or a person, or an army
unit, will be able to move against him and replace him. Saddam Hussein is not
still president of Iraq because he's a popular man. Saddam Hussein is president
because neither the United States, the U.K., the Iraqi opposition or anyone
else has discovered an alternative to Saddam Hussein that is not worse than
Saddam Hussein as far as Western interests are concerned. If the people within
Iraq are led to believe that things will be better, that Iraq will not fragment
or be colonized, that Iraq will be allowed to run its oil affairs by itself,
that not too many people will be punished, killed or imprisoned after Saddam
goes, then that will open the way for Saddam to be removed. There are not many
people who are willing to die defending him anymore. That is a critical point
that we forget
The
other thing we forget is the people outside calling for the United States to
give them air cover and things like that to topple Saddam Hussein -- those
people are really in the business of asking the United States to do their work
for them. If they want to topple him, then they have to establish connections
with people within who are near him, and who can remove him. And they're afraid
to do that, because that undermines their leadership positions. But that has to
be done. After that, it will become easy. He has to go, and he will go. When we
will reach this point, it will be a short while after, and Saddam will be done
Do
you think that there are people close to Saddam who would like him out, and
they made the calculation in their own minds that for some reason now, either
they can't get close enough to him, or something stops them from removing him?
I have
no doubt that there are people within the security system, the army, the
government of Iraq, and all over Iraq who would like to see Saddam gone, and
the situation of Iraq change. But these people have to be assured that they
will not suffer for what they do. And we have failed to establish connection
with the people inside Iraq who can reach Saddam. We are dealing with outsiders
who live in London and Washington and other parts of Europe -- people who have
no following within Iraq. We have to open the way for people within Iraq
itself, people within the system itself, to remove Saddam Hussein. That, beside
an act of God, is the only way to remove him
But the
actual act of removing him after that would not be very difficult. He does not
have a popular base. He lives there by virtue of the Iraqi people's fear. Once
that fear is removed, the Iraqi people will move against him, as they have in
the past moved against other dictators successfully, even ones who were very,
very closely protected by their followers
The
circle around Saddam Hussein has grown so small, and there are so few people he
trusts, that there is the possibility of an implosion, of that circle becoming
too small to run the country, and self-destructing. All you have to do is take
out one component of that small circle, and that small circle stops working.
Saddam has two sons and two or three other people, who are all relations. Each
of them is assuming so much responsibility for what happens in the country. All
you have to do, for instance is remove his younger son, Qussay, who is now in
charge of security. If two security officers are able to replace Qussay, or
remove him, or assassinate him, then the road is wide open to move against
Saddam himself. No matter where he sleeps -- and he sleeps in different places
every night -- it wouldn't protect him
The
ultimate irony is that he came to power and asserted his control by eliminating
rivals and narrowing the people that he relies on. He's done this over the
years. And now it's so small, and actually sort of disintegrating
The
group around Saddam is too small to maintain power for a long period of time.
He needs to rely on more people, and I doubt whether he has other people he can
rely on. I doubt he can trust anyone who is outside the immediate family,
outside his sons and his first cousins, and this is an impossible situation.
You cannot hold power for a very long period of time that way. Even Stalin had
more people around him than Saddam Hussein has. No dictator has been so
confined in modern times as Saddam is at this moment. And this will lead to
some kind of implosion. The system is not big enough to hold the huge structure
behind it: the nine different security organizations, the Republican Guard, the
Special Republican Guard, the army, the air force, the various governmental
departments, allocation of money, dealing with the Kurds, dealing with the
Shias, dealing with the Arab countries. This is a very, very big government. It
needs more than about six or seven people. The decision-maker is Saddam, and
he's surrounded by a small number of people, six or seven people only, that's
it
The
other people are spokesmen who we see on television every day. They have
nothing to do with decision-making. There is a joke about Saddam turning to his
deputy prime minister, and saying, "What time is it?" and the deputy
prime minister says, "Whatever time you want." That is the way Saddam
operates. You cannot hold a government together that way