Iraq - President Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti

Saddam, the president, supreme commander, head of the National Command Council and self-styled Hero of al-Qadisiay, Knight of the Arab Nation, descendent of the Prophet, son of Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib, is still the man. He had an early start at being a bastard. He was born out of wedlock on April 28, 1937, in the village of al-Ouja, an hour drive north of Baghdad. The man who sired him died before he was born. He got the name Saddam or "the stubborn one" because his mother tried to unsuccessfully abort him by strenuous labor. He was raised by an uncle, Khairallah Talfah, an Iraqi army officer who was jailed for a botched coup attempt against King Faisal II. He moved with his uncle to Baghdad in 1955 after he killed his first victim (shot in the back) at the ripe old age of 14. He was considered bright, cruel and violent. In his youth, he entertained himself and his friends by torturing and killing dogs and cats by sticking a red-hot steel rod up their anuses and in their eyes.

He joined the Ba'ath Party (Party of Arab Renewal) in 1957 and participated in an assassination attempt on Iraq's General Kassem on October 17, 1959. Saddam bungled it, was injured and fled to Syria for six months. He then went to study law in Egypt in 1962 and returned to Iraq after Kassem was deposed and executed in public.

Saddam married his cousin Sajida Talfah (the oldest daughter of Khairallah Talfah, the man who raised Saddam) in an arranged marriage in 1963. She bore two sons: Uday was born in 1964 and his second son, Qusay, was born in 1966. To show how close fruit falls from the tree in Iraq, he made his wife's brother, Adnan, defense minister and his wife's father the governor of Baghdad. You should also know he had Adnan killed. All in all, Saddam has had 40 of his relatives whacked.

The tables turned when Marshall Arif took power and arrested and jailed Ba'ath Party members, including Saddam. Saddam escaped and finally returned when Arif was deposed in 1968. This time Saddam became the ruling Ba'ath Party's deputy secretary general and chief inquisitor under President al-Bakr. Saddam kept busy executing hundreds of citizens, cozying up to the Russians and handing out jobs to fellow Tikritis. On May 16, 1979, al-Bakr died from heart failure. His heart stopped because he had been poisoned. The "stubborn one" had come from being a bastard to becoming the head bastard by the age of 43.

Saddam was famous for launching the 20th century's longest official war. The war with Iran killed one million people and lasted eight years. His big claim to fame was the invasion and rape of Kuwait. Under direct orders from Saddam, Iraqi soldiers are said to have removed more than 10,000 luxury vehicles (sold at public auction in Bagdad for $125 million), 3,216 bars of gold, 63 tons of gold coins and anything else of cultural or economic value, and had it shipped back to Iraq.

Saddam's banker was half brother and former head of the Mukhabarat, Barzan al-Tikriti who used to live in Geneva. (Why is it that so many of Saddam's family always end up being referred to in the past tense?) He was officially Iraq's rep at the UN, but he spent most of his time stashing away Saddam's bucks and buying weapons, including nukes. But in a fit of paranoia, Saddam had him recalled to Baghdad, accused him of cozying up to the CIA and put him under house arrest. Barzan, you will not be surprised to know, had a few problems with Uday. Thinking it might be a good idea to skip base, Barzan hopped on a plane for the United Arab Emirates and asked for political asylum.

Saddam has modestly bestowed a number of titles upon himself. He is president and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), regional secretary of the ruling Ba'ath Party, head of the 100,000-strong Popular Militia and commander in chief of Iraq's armed forces. In his youth, Saddam's dream was to become an officer in the Iraqi army. Alas, it was not to be. Saddam was rejected by the Iraqi military's officer training academy for his poor school grades. Never fear, when he became Prezzy in 1979 he made himself C in C of the armed forces, skipping all those tiresome ranks in between. One of the reasons Iraq screwed up so badly in its war with Iran was that C in C Saddam hadn't a clue about directing a war. No surprise, as he was never a soldier. He obviously never had a chance to study Soldier of Fortune, but still insisted on directing the war personally.

When he needs help running the country, he hires homeboys from Tikrit, north of Baghdad. The Tikritis are known as a minor league mafia who have graduated to running Iraq. But Saddam's absolute rule rests on more than just his popularity. He once shot dead a general who rashly disagreed with him in a cabinet meeting. Officially Saddam is chairman of the RCC, ex-officio, president of the republic. The president appoints ministers and judges, and laws are enacted by presidential decree. The country is currently divided into four zones of control. Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al Majid, governs Basra and much of the south. Majid has a good record for population control, which is such a concern of the World Health Organization (WHO) these days. It is unlikely, though, that Majid will be asked to write WHO pamphlets on how to keep the national population low. Majid's preferred methods are chemical weapons and firing squads. In northern Iraq, Majid managed to lower the Kurdish population by about 200,000 (out of 4 million) in less than a year at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.

Saddam's son Qusay and two generals control the other three sectors. But even they can't touch Majid for rapid population control.

Saddam is swiftly using up his nine lives. He survived a failed military coup in May 1991, and he offed 18 senior army officers just to make sure he could get a good night's sleep. In 1984, one of his stand-ins was assassinated by the Shiite Dawas (see "Marsh Arabs [the Ma'dan] and the Shiite Dawn Party"). His current body double is Faoas al-Emari, a man who has a hard time getting an insurance policy. It isn't known how many times the United States tried to take him out during the Gulf War. In June 1991, he fired 1,500 senior army officers and 180 senior police officers as a reward for following his orders during the Gulf War. Assassination attempts are the biggest concern for Saddam. After one attempt, more than 200 current and former officers and civilians were arrested, including the commander of the Republican Guard's tank battalion, Brig Sufiyan al-Ghurairi, and former parliamentarian Jasser al-Tikriti. All the plotters hailed from Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, as well as from Mosul and Ramadi. The attempt appears to have been the first in which members of the Tikrit clan played an important role in trying to remove their favorite son.

Saddam has developed a not-too-paranoid fear of being poisoned by shaking someone's hand. So if you happen to run into him, no soul shakes and definitely no tongue. If you're really lucky you get to kiss Saddam's armpits. His favorite song? The subtle and melodic, "Saddam, Oh Saddam, You Great and Powerful One." In October 1995, he held a plebiscite to see if Iraqis wanted him, and-surprise!-he received 99.9 percent of the vote. It is assumed that the 45 people who voted against him in Baghdad were either blind or shot as they were exiting the polls.

Saddam is one hell of a guy. In fact, he's like Qaddafi with cojones, or an Assad with more bluster and a guy who regularly takes on the entire Western world, his own people, his relatives and just about anybody who isn't him. Whatever you believe, one thing for sure is Saddam Hussein still calls the shots in Iraq.

For those of you who want to check out the official Iraqi Web site, try the following:

www.iraqi-mission.org

or for more on Saddamania try

http://www.inc.org.uk/Saddambackground.html

http://www.inc.org.uk/iraqiarm.htm

http://www.iraqfoundation.org/

The Bad Boys Club: Current and Recent Past

What do all these guys have in common? They like uniforms; they're on a first-name basis with editorial cartoonists; and they're all current or former targets of CIA plots.

Dues-Paying Members

Fidel Castro

Cuba

Muammar Qaddafi

Libya

Saddam Hussein

Iraq

Kim Jong Il

North Korea

Emeritus

Manuel Noriega

Panama

Ayatollah Khomeini

Iran

Daniel Ortega

Nicaragua