Saddam : His Rise and Fall (34 page)

The most serious challenge to Saddam's position came from within his own family the following year when he was forced to place his three half brothers—Barzan, Watban, and Sabawi—under house arrest. Precisely what caused this family fallout has never been adequately explained. It has been suggested that Barzan was involved in a coup attempt against his half brother, in which he was approached by a group of military officers and offered the presidency if he would support a putsch against Saddam. Another version blames the failure of Barzan, who was head of security, to detect a plot against Saddam, which was ironic given that the previous year Barzan had actually published a book entitled
Attempts to Assassinate Saddam Hussein
in which he provided details of seven alleged plots, some of which had taken place before Saddam became leader, and accusing such disparate forces as Syria, Israel, and the United States of being the masterminds behind the schemes.

A more likely explanation is that Saddam and his half brothers became embroiled in a family feud. It is probably no coincidence that these tensions developed soon after the death of Saddam's beloved mother in August 1983; she was fiercely protective of her sons by her second marriage. The rivalry between the al-Majids, Saddam's blood relatives through his natural father, and the al-Ibrahims, his relatives through his mother's second marriage, was to become one of the key causes of tension within his regime. During her life Subha Tulfah had promoted the interests of all her sons, and the fact that all three of Saddam's
half brothers had occupied such prominent positions in the government was as much due to Subha's persuasive talents as Saddam's proclivity for filling key positions with fellow Tikritis and family. The most likely explanation for the fallout between Saddam and his half brothers in late 1983 was Saddam's choice of bridegroom for his eldest daughter, Raghad. For all the Baathist propaganda about the emancipation of women that had taken place under the Baath, in Saddam's family traditional, tribal customs still prevailed, and it was the duty of the father to choose a suitable son-in-law. In this case Saddam had opted for Hussein Kamel al-Majid, one of his cousins. An officer of limited talent, Hussein had managed to ingratiate himself with both Saddam and Sajida. He had accompanied Sajida on her shopping trips to New York and, thanks to his family connections, occupied several key positions in Saddam's security apparatus. Saddam's choice of Hussein, however, caused deep offense to Barzan, who had been hoping that his own son would become betrothed to Raghad. Barzan was so incensed by the news that Saddam had opted for Hussein Kamel that, in typical Tikriti fashion, he threatened to kill Hussein rather than let him deprive his own son of his chosen bride. Thus a country that was in the midst of a murderous war and that was in the process of developing an arsenal of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons found itself suddenly paralyzed by a family squabble over tribal marriage arrangements.

That the dispute was more tribal than conspiratorial was revealed a few days after the three half brothers had been placed under house arrest. Saddam made a public declaration of support in favor of Barzan's loyalty, something he would not have done had there been a shred of proof that had implicated any of the three half brothers in a plot against Saddam. Had such evidence been forthcoming, they would have experienced the same fate as any other conspirator, and been dispatched by one of Saddam's firing squads. Once tempers had cooled, the recalcitrant Barzan was treated in the same way as previous high-ranking Baathists who, for one reason or another, had fallen out of favor with the Baath hierarchy. Barzan was sent into exile as an ambassador, in his case in the unlikely role of Iraq's official representative to UNESCO in Geneva. Three years later the two other half brothers were rehabilitated. Sabawi took over Barzan's previous position as head of Amn al-Khass and Watban was made head of State Internal Security. The first significant crisis in Saddam's relations with his family had been resolved without recourse to bloodshed. It was an example that would not always be followed in the troubled years that lay ahead.

The war was taking its toll on Saddam. The military setbacks of 1982, together with the incipient signs of popular unrest, affected Saddam's outlook. Saddam had always been susceptible to the idea that Baghdad was awash with plots and conspiracies, but the pressures of a war that showed no sign of abating only served to exacerbate his profound sense of paranoia. The carefree days when he could entertain his people with surprise visits, as he had on many occasions during the early years of his presidency, were long gone. No person or institution—not even his own family—was to be trusted. An elaborate and extensive security cordon was thrown up to protect the president from the numerous assassins, both foreign and domestic, who he had convinced himself were out for his blood. Whenever and wherever he traveled, decoy convoys of armored limousines with blacked-out windows and surrounded by heavily armed security guards would make dummy runs, trying to lure the would-be assassins from their lairs. With his own experience of plotting and carrying out assassinations, Saddam knew a thing or two about the mind of an assassin, and it was second nature for him to try to beat the assassins at their own game.

Similarly, visiting dignitaries would be required to go through a lengthy vetting procedure before they would be allowed into Saddam's presence. No one, not even his closest aides, could safely predict where Saddam would be at any given time. On the rare occasions that Iranian fighter-bombers were able to reach Baghdad, Saddam was sure that the bombs were aimed directly at him. Consequently the president took to sleeping in various “safe houses”
in the Baghdad suburbs, an old habit that he had practiced during his years as an underground organizer of the Baath in the 1960s and one he would repeat many times in the future when he felt his personal safety was at risk. Saddam's mounting paranoia had many bizarre manifestations. When wearing his favorite hunting clothes, his hat would be lined with Kevlar bulletproof material. From the late 1970s he had employed his own cooks, but now they were supplanted by his personal food tasters, who accompanied him on trips when he ventured outside Baghdad. Rather than consult Iraqi doctors, who might easily be recruited by his enemies, Saddam hired a number of foreign physicians to care for his ailments. Former officials have claimed that he increasingly relied on the use of doubles to represent him at official ceremonies; one of the doubles is said to have been shot dead in 1984 after being mistaken for the real Saddam. Even Saddam's eldest son, Uday, was reported to have his own double. General Wafic al-Samurrai, who for a period in the 1980s was one of Saddam's most trusted military officers and was on intimate terms with the president, has confirmed that he saw doubles standing in for Saddam at minor official functions on several occasions.

Saddam had already created his own intelligence service, the Amn al-Khass, and in 1984 he took his personal security to new extremes when he created his own army, the revitalized version of the Republican Guard that had been in existence since the 1960s. The Baath prided itself on having its own militia, the Popular Army, which at the start of the war numbered around 250,000. In the early years of the war the Popular Army, which was in reality little more than a collection of enthusiastic Baathist amateurs, had carried out civil defense duties; on no account did it ever run the risk of seeing genuine combat. In 1984 Saddam decided to replace the Baath army with his own army unit, which owed its allegiance solely to the president. Beginning with just two brigades, the Republican Guard rapidly developed into an army within an army. It was equipped with the best available military equipment: Soviet-built T72, T62, and T55 tanks, French-manufactured 155-millimeter guns, and advanced ground-to-air missiles. Members of the Guard, drawn, like Saddam, from peasant Sunni stock, were imposing physical specimens. They received special training and better salaries than the other soldiers, and were totally dependent on Saddam for their existence. If the Iranians ever came close to invading Baghdad, the Republican Guard, like their praetorian forebears, would be expected to defend their president to the death. An elaborate security structure was imposed on the regular armed
forces to prevent them from carrying out assassination and coup attempts. Army units were not allowed within one hundred miles of Baghdad, and when they relocated they did so without ammunition. Political commissars and security agents reported directly to Saddam's office on the performance of individual officers, who were frequently moved from unit to unit to prevent them from becoming too close to their troops.

Saddam had been badly shaken by the Israeli air raid the previous year that had destroyed Iraq's nuclear weapons program, and to protect himself and the regime from future air attacks he launched a costly program to build a network of underground bunkers to shelter both himself and the country's strategic resources. Although Saddam claimed the plan was being commissioned in the interests of national security, there was more than a suggestion that Saddam's own “bunker mentality” lay behind his interest in the project. British companies submitted designs for enough underground bunkers to hide forty-eight thousand soldiers. One of Saddam's personal bunkers was built beneath a cinema in the basement of the Al-Sijood administrative complex, located close to the Presidential Palace. Small by Saddam's standards (thirty feet by fifteen feet), it nevertheless contained enough electronic equipment, computers, teleprinters, and fiber-optic communications links for Saddam to maintain contact with his troops throughout the country.

Another Saddam bunker was built close to the new Presidential Palace complex he had started to build. This bunker, which was built by a German firm, was buried about three hundred feet beneath the Tigris River. The walls contained six to eight feet of reinforced concrete and the structure rested on huge springs, two feet in diameter, on a cushion of hard, molded rubber. In the event of a Hiroshima-sized bomb being detonated just a quarter of a mile away from the bunker, “Saddam would only feel a jolt.” The bunker contained two escape routes, including an earthquake-proof elevator. Both the entrances to this James Bond–like fantasy hideout were guarded by automatically controlled machine-gun nests.
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Saddam ordered special security arrangements to be included in the construction of the VIP lounge at Saddam International Airport, which was then under construction. He ordered the French contractors to build an underground escape route and a separate access road. “If the airport came under attack,” recalled one of the French engineers, “Saddam could escape through a 15-kilometre-long tunnel beneath the VIP lounge that led to a secret helicopter landing pad out in the desert.”
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Members of Saddam's immediate family were reaching the age when they could assume positions of responsibility in the government. It has become the habit among secular Arab despots to groom their sons as their political heirs; Bashir Asad became president of Syria on the death of his father, and both President Mubarak of Egypt and Colonel Gadhafi of Libya gave their sons privileged government positions in the hope that they might prove worthy successors. Saddam was no different, and when Uday graduated in engineering from the University of Baghdad in 1984, he rewarded his eldest son by appointing him director of Iraq's Olympic Committee. Even the most committed sports enthusiast would be hard-pressed to recall the last occasion on which an Iraqi athlete qualified for an Olympic event, but the Olympic Committee was more of a showcase position that enabled the twenty-year-old Uday to learn the art of government. In fact most of Uday's responsibilities concerned youth development, a task for which he was singularly unsuited in view of the unruly, selfish, and thuggish demeanor he had displayed both in high school and the university. Uday had graduated with an average grade of 98.5 percent, an unlikely score given his known preference for nightclubs over classrooms. It has also been claimed that tutors who were not prepared to give him the highest grade possible were tortured and lost their jobs.
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With both sons reaching marriageable age, Saddam had an opportunity to further his family's dynastic ambitions. In late 1984 Saddam arranged for Uday to marry his cousin Saja, who was the daughter of Saddam's half brother Barzan. As Saddam himself had shown with his own marriage to his first cousin, it was not uncommon for Iraqi men to marry close relatives. Although the Baath Party had made a heroic effort to modernize Iraq's economic and social structure in the sixteen years it had been in power, the ties of family and tribe remained immutable, and arranged marriages remained the norm. Barzan was still living in exile in Geneva following the family feud that had broken out the previous year over Saddam's refusal to allow Barzan's son to marry Saddam's eldest daughter, Raghad. By allowing one of Barzan's daughters to marry his eldest son, Saddam clearly hoped to settle the feud and persuade Barzan to return home and provide him with some much-needed moral support during the dark days of the war.

The union between Uday and Saja duly took place, and everything appeared set for a formal reconciliation between Saddam and his half brother. But Saddam had failed to appreciate just how out of control his eldest son
had become, even after entering adulthood. Neither son had exactly been subjected to much discipline during their childhood, and the coffee shops and bazaars of Baghdad were frequently regaled with tales of the latest indiscretions of both Uday and Qusay. Their favorite haunt was the rooftop discotheque of the Melia Mansour Hotel, and Qusay, who was rather more fastidious in his choice of companion, was said to import blondes from Scandinavia for his personal entertainment. Even though both sons aspired to a playboy lifestyle, the failure of Uday's marriage after less than three months was truly scandalous even by the low moral standards of the Hussein clan. The precise reason for the marital breakdown has never been adequately explained, although it has become generally accepted within Iraqi society that the principal cause of the split was Uday's impotence.
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Despite Uday's love of fast cars and racy nightclubs, suggestions persisted that he rarely achieved sexual fulfillment, which was the underlying psychological cause of his violent temper. When the brokenhearted Saja returned to her father's home in Geneva, it was generally accepted that the marriage had not been consummated. She returned home covered with cuts and bruises, the result of a savage beating she had received as a parting gift from Uday. Frustrated by his own inadequacy, violent outbursts were to become one of Uday's defining characteristics. Barzan, meanwhile, was less inclined than ever to contemplate a reconciliation with his half brother.

Saddam enjoyed more success in arranging the marriage of his other son, Qusay, who was quieter in temperament and more studious than his elder brother. For once one of Saddam's children was allowed to marry outside the family, although not outside the Tikriti clan. Qusay took for his bride Sahar, the daughter of one of the few genuine heroes of the war with Iran, General Maher Abdul Rashid, the Iraqi officer who was credited with having saved Saddam from capture by the Iranians in 1982. Although Saddam and Rashid had their differences (see Chapter Eight), Rashid was a Tikriti, after all, and a marriage into one of the more respectable Iraqi military families would undoubtedly raise the Husseins' social standing, a factor that was as important for Saddam as it was for his wife, Sajida. Qusay's marriage in 1985 was as much a political affair as it was dynastic, and any romantic element seems to have been completely lacking. As soon as two children had been produced, the marriage was dissolved. The collapse of this marriage might also have had something to do with the fact that, by the end of the war, Saddam, who was preternaturally jealous of the success enjoyed by any of his military officers, had placed his son's father-in-law under
house arrest. The final piece in Saddam's dynastic jigsaw was put in place the same year when his second eldest daughter, Rana, married another of Saddam's first cousins, Saddam Kamel al-Majid, who was the younger brother of her elder sister's husband, Hussein Kamel al-Majid. By strengthening the ruling family's ties to the al-Majids, the relatives of Saddam's natural father, Saddam increased the estrangement of the al-Ibrahims, his stepfather's family, for his three half brothers had all nurtured the aspiration that their own sons might become betrothed to one of the president's daughters.

Saddam's preoccupation with feathering his family's nest while the rest of the country was suffering the bitter privations of war did little to improve his popularity among Iraqis. Stories about the venality of the Hussein clan, and particularly their interest in acquiring property, became commonplace. In 1985, to accommodate the requirements of his growing family, Saddam was said to have sequestered an entire town along the banks of the Euphrates. The owners of the valuable land and houses were paid sums of money determined by Saddam's family rather than by market conditions. When Saddam came to hear that the evicted landowners were less than pleased with the compensation they had received, he exploded, “They were without jackets and shoes before me.”
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Any number of lurid myths began to circulate about Saddam's family. It was widely believed, though never confirmed, that a young man who had taken a fancy to Saddam's youngest daughter, Hala, his favorite and the only one of his five children who was unmarried, was buried up to his neck and stoned to death. And even though Saddam had passed draconian anticorruption laws to deter Iraqis from profiteering from foreign contracts, his ruling inner circle seemed to have no qualms about ostentatiously flaunting their wealth. Adnan Khairallah, Saddam's brother-in-law and defense minister, collected a huge fleet of expensive cars. He would import a dozen Mercedes at a time and had a chauffeur for each. Adnan's greed made a deep impression on his nephews, Uday and Qusay, who began collecting their own fleets of cars, although the younger members of the Hussein clan were more interested in sports cars. In Saddam's view, the wealth being accumulated by his family was nothing less than what they deserved. “We have grabbed the lines of the sun,” he declared on one occasion, “and we will not go.”
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So far as Saddam was concerned, Iraq's vast oil wealth was the exclusive domain of his family.