Lion of Jordan (101 page)

This was a high-profile media event, with the president acting as an accomplished master of ceremonies. People who saw Hussein on television screens round the world were shocked by his loss of hair and weight. But he sounded forceful as he presented his case for peace between long-standing enemies. ‘We quarrel, we agree. We are friendly, we are not friendly,' he said. ‘But we have no right to dictate through irresponsible action or narrow-mindedness the future of our children and their children's children. There has been enough destruction. Enough death. Enough waste. It is time that, together, we occupy a place beyond ourselves, our peoples, that is worthy of them under the sun, the descendants of the children of Abraham.'
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Hussein received many accolades for his contribution to the successful outcome of the summit. President Clinton remarked that the king was physically the weakest and the most fragile among them but morally the strongest.
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The Jordanians portrayed the summit as a service to vital Jordanian interests and as an illustration of their country's indispensable regional role. They also saw the king's participation as an expression of international recognition of his personal stature and prestige.
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In retrospect, Hussein's departure from his sickbed to support and guide the negotiators at Wye may be seen as his last practical contribution to the cause of peace. Hussein would be nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1998 for all his years of effort towards peace in the Middle East. The prize was ultimately awarded to the political leaders of Northern Ireland, but he was honoured by the nomination.

Hussein had a bone marrow tap when they returned to the Mayo, his fifth or sixth, but this one was particularly agonizing to watch. He was under a general anaesthetic and did not feel anything, but watching them wrench his body around and then violently break through the bone was so disturbing that a new nurse observing the procedure fainted. Noor empathized with her, as she was herself shaken by the brutal torment that her husband's body had to endure. The bone marrow was donated by Hussein's sister Basma and his brother Muhammad, the only members of his family whose blood was compatible for harvesting cells for a transplant. Hassan offered to help, but his blood was of a different type. Hussein gave an interview to Jordan Television, telling his people that the latest test showed no trace of lymphoma. ‘Thank
God that everything is proceeding in a good manner,' he said. ‘By God's will, this will be the final stage of treatment, after which I will return home.' The Mayo Clinic issued its own statement. ‘His Majesty is in complete remission from lymphoma,' the clinic said, and went on to explain that he would have an auto-transplant of his own healthy stem cells, a standard procedure to ensure a permanent remission.
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At about this time an incident occurred that may have affected Hussein's attitude towards his brother and heir-apparent. The Israeli newspaper
Yediot Aharonot
published an article that reported American sources as saying that Hussein had only three months to live. Randa Habib inadvertently became a player as well as a reporter in the events that unfolded subsequently. Habib was a French journalist of Lebanese origins who had headed the office of the Agence France Presse in Jordan since 1987 and enjoyed privileged access to the king. The agency's Jerusalem office called her that morning because they wanted to pick up the story, but she told them to wait until she got a reaction from the palace. She expected a prompt official denial. Yet all her efforts in the course of the next four hours to get a comment from the regent's office were in vain. She asked Prime Minister Tarawneh whether the king was dying, and he vigorously disputed this assessment. When she asked him why he was not issuing an official denial, he looked embarrassed. She then called Foreign Minister Abdul Ilah al-Khatib and asked him the same question. He replied that they had instructions not to comment. Habib concluded that Hassan had a hidden agenda – that he wanted Jordanians to hear the story and get used to the idea that their king was dying. She did not know how the king found out, but the next day he called her and said, ‘Thank you for what you have done. I always knew I could count on you. Always follow your gut feeling.' Habib found out later that Hussein was very hurt when he learned that his brother would not deny the rumour about his imminent death. In her judgement, this incident was instrumental in sealing Hassan's fate.
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The Jordanian constitution states that an absence of the monarch from the country for over four months, while parliament is in recess, requires the convening of parliament for a special session. Parliament was duly convened on 22 November for a session that was no more than a mere formality. Prime Minister Fayez Tarawneh made a statement on the monarch's health, claiming that he had fully recovered and was to return home in the near future. Six days later Prince Hassan opened the
regular session of parliament with the traditional speech from the throne. Despite these official announcements, all kinds of rumours continued to circulate about plans to change the succession. Some journalists reported that Queen Noor was tirelessly campaigning for her son Hamzah to replace her brother-in-law as crown prince, while others suggested that Hussein's second wife, Princess Muna, was lobbying on behalf of her son Abdullah. Abdullah himself told a journalist that he was proud of the fact that his father was called Abu Abdullah and that, constitutionally, there was nothing to prevent him from becoming king. Assuming the posture of a senior sibling, he contended that speculation was placing unnecessary pressure on Hamzah and that he should be allowed to grow up in peace. When asked whether he himself wanted to be king, Abdullah evaded the question, arguing that whatever he might say could be misinterpreted.
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Anyone could speculate about the future of Prince Hassan and the chances of the other candidates for the Hashemite throne, and journalists had a field day. Only one man, however, had the power to make changes. A major reason for the uncertainty surrounding the succession was that Hussein rarely spoke, even in private, about the subject. In the past he had often acted decisively and even impulsively, but on this matter he experienced great difficulty in making up his mind. Hussein was torn between his sense of duty towards his younger brother, who had served him so loyally for the past thirty-four years, and his love for two of his sons, Abdullah and Hamzah. Hussein faced a complex choice between demoting his brother there and then or allowing his brother to succeed but arranging for the succession to return to his line of the family after Hassan's reign. Hassan's son Rashid was nineteen years old, and, if matters were allowed to follow their natural constitutional course, Rashid would succeed upon his father's death. Hussein was isolated in the Mayo and cut off from contact with his brother. His illness, the chemotherapy and the gruelling treatment that he had to undergo made it all the more difficult for him to think clearly and to reach a final conclusion. It is a natural human tendency to put off unpleasant choices, and Hussein was not immune to this. He procrastinated and procrastinated until his own imminent death forced him to make a decision.

After Queen Noor, the person who spent most time with Hussein in his last months was his ADC, Colonel Hussein al-Majali. He was the son of Hazza' al-Majali, the prime minister who had been assassinated
by Syrian agents on 29 August 1960. Hussein Majali was seven months old when his father was assassinated. Hussein became his guardian, mentor, idol and, eventually, his friend. Majali reciprocated the king's kindness with fierce loyalty and boundless devotion. He was at the king's side throughout the last seven months of his life, attending to his every need. Majali's brother Ayman was the king's chief of protocol, and he too spent long stretches of time in attendance at the Mayo. Hussein Majali, however, was the only Jordanian official to accompany the king on the last, desperate leg of his journey. He was the ultimate courtier, privy to his master's thoughts, feelings and suffering. Although Majali claimed that he was completely neutral in the matter of the succession, there were family loyalties at play. His sister was the second wife of Prince Muhammad bin Talal, the king's middle brother, who was said to harbour some lingering ill feelings towards Hassan for upstaging him as crown prince. Nevertheless, Majali is more important as a witness than as an actor in the drama that unfolded during the last seven months of the king's life.

According to Majali, in the first month at the Mayo in July 1998 the subject of the succession was not talked about because everybody wanted to believe that the king would make a complete recovery. It was not exactly taboo, but those close to the king did not feel like talking about it. It was only in October/November, as a result of the serious deterioration in the king's health, that the subject began to feature more prominently in their thoughts and discussions. The only official with whom the king discussed the matter directly was General Batikhi. Batikhi would go to Rochester for two days at a time to report to the king, and every meeting would last an hour or two, longer than any of the king's other appointments. Majali's guess is that the decision to remove Hassan began to take shape in the king's mind in October or November, but he did not hear that from the king himself. Even as he was moving towards a decision, the king preferred to keep all his options open. Rather than tell Majali directly, the king would say to him, ‘Has General Batikhi told you and Ayman?' without specifying what the general was meant to have said. The Majali brothers surmised that their master was planning to change the succession, but they could not be absolutely certain.
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Hussein's decision not to allow matters to take their natural course appears to have been reached in two stages. In the first Hussein made up his mind that Hassan should not succeed but had not yet determined
the structure of the succession. In the second he settled on the final disposition, namely, that Abdullah was to replace Hassan. Abdullah made no move of his own to unseat his uncle. But when the first signs appeared that his uncle's fate was sealed, he saw no reason to rule himself out as a possible successor.
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In November, Abdullah paid a visit to his father at the Mayo. Six months previously Abdullah had commanded a daring attack on Iraqi terrorists in Sahab and won his father's respect. At that time he told his father that he needed to know whether he had a career path in the army because, if so, he wanted to go on a course in Monterrey. Hussein advised him to go and held out the prospect of promotion to deputy chief of staff afterwards. In the Mayo, the two men had a breakfast that lasted about three hours. Abdullah recalls:

The first time was when he said, ‘I have great things in mind for you. I think you kind of learned it the hard way. I think I've let you down. You never asked for help and I never gave it to you. And I feel as a father looking back that I've let you down.' I said, ‘A couple of years ago I would have said yes, but looking back at things, if I hadn't gone through the hardship that I did, I don't think I would have the experience and the knowledge that I have now. So, I am actually grateful.' He said, ‘How is Sidi Hassan doing?' And I said, ‘You know it is very difficult. You're away and everybody's terrified. In all honesty, people don't think that there's going to be a Jordan without you there. God forbid if something happens to you.'

He said, ‘I'm happy that when we get back you and I are going to have some talks. I need you to help me out on certain issues.' I still didn't connect it with… I mean, I always thought great people like my father were not going to succumb to such a thing as cancer. So I expected that what he meant was again chief of staff. But then he said, ‘I want reforms as well as a lot of change and I want you there to assist me to change those things.' So I thought: he's going to listen to what I've been saying on certain social issues and some of the army issues.
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Hussein and his wife spent Christmas in the hospital with their children. They marked the occasion with their extended family of nurses, doctors and the rest of the medical staff. Their time at the Mayo finally came to an end. They issued another press release, saying that they were leaving the hospital with the king's cancer in remission, but that it would take five years for this to be considered permanent. They greeted the
New Year 1999 at River House with six of their children. Hussein was still very weak and took only occasional walks in the garden with Noor and their daughter Iman – wearing his English shooting cap to keep his head warm and his mask against infection. He had also taken to using a cane again, partly because of his weakness and partly because of an enduring fondness for walking sticks, which he collected. With a profusion of apologies he admitted to his family that he had started smoking again. All in all, he was showing more signs of his old self.
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Despite all the meticulous care and attention that Hussein received at the Mayo Clinic, it is possible that the doctors underestimated the seriousness of his illness. They diagnosed a low grade of lymphoma when he might have been suffering from a higher one that was basically incurable. Whatever the grade, Hussein clearly needed a long period of time for convalescence. The doctors advised him to stop off for a week in London on his way back home because they knew he would be swamped once he arrived in Amman. On 5 January 1999 Hussein himself flew his plane to London, where, on 9 January, he received a surprise visit from his younger brother. The fact that Hassan had not visited Hussein at the Mayo even once was used by enemies as evidence of callousness and even disloyalty, but each time he had proposed a visit he had been discouraged. Hussein told Hassan that it was imperative that he stay put in Jordan, as he felt that a visit would feed the rumours that he was critically ill. He also felt the political situation was too uncertain to have them both out of the country at the same time. He was effusive in his praise for his younger brother, frequently referring to Hassan as the cornerstone of the Hashemites and the tree trunk that supported them all. Hassan for his part was now seriously troubled by the rumours that his brother was contemplating changes to the succession and had made the trip to London without clearing it in advance with his brother. Princess Sarvath, Hassan's wife, made three attempts to see the king, all of which were thwarted. On one occasion, she waited for several days in the United States, but even then was not allowed to visit him.