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Saddam's pillars of
power
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With possibly only a matter of days to
go before the United States and its allies go to war
against Saddam Hussein - with or without United Nations
approval - speculation is rife that the designated
purpose of regime change might take place quicker than
expected, with Saddam either being toppled by a coup or
going into voluntary exile.
However,
underpinning these assumptions, as this correspondent
learned on a recent visit to Iraq, are several
misconceptions about
Saddam: the stark reality is that
the dictator will in all likelihood fight for a lot
longer than expected, in the process turning the war
into the beginning of a nightmare for the whole region.
Ever since being handed the titles of President
of Iraq and Chairman of the Revolutionary Command
Council in 1979, Saddam has been the subject of
widespread discussion. Myriad analysts have studied his
personality and tried to come to grips with what drives
the man.
What we do know is that 66-year-old
Saddam of the Albu-Ghafur clan was born in the poor
village of Auja in Tikrit district north of Baghdad, and
that what many now describe as his "peasant mind" was
formed in this environment of simple farmers: a dogged
determination to cling onto what he has (land in the
case of a peasant, power in the case of Saddam).
Saddam is believed to have committed the first
of what is said to be many murders when he was still in
his teens, at a time that he was immersed in the
anti-British and anti-Western atmosphere of the day. The
police officer who caught him is said to have found a
weapon in Saddam's hands, but there was no sign on his
face or in his demeanor of remorse.
In 1963,
Saddam joined in a plot to assassinate the military
ruler General Abdel Karim Qassem, and the Ba'ath Party
came into power, but it was itself ousted nine months
later. During this time Saddam sustained a bullet injury
in the leg, which still bothers him, especially in
winter, forcing him to say his prayers seated in a
chair. He also spent some time in jail.
In 1968
the Ba'ath Party retook control in Baghdad, and Saddam
ruthlessly began to make himself a person of influence.
He quickly forced his way onto the ruling Revolutionary
Command Council, from where he later took the full reins
of power.
Over the decades Saddam has shown
himself to be perfectly content to dispose of his
opponents by violent means, and the security apparatus
that he has established reflects this murderous streak.
And just as he is ruthlessly brutal on the home
front against his enemies, he spares nothing against
enemy soldiers. A present member of the Iraqi parliament
recounts an incident during the Iraq-Iran war of the
1980s when Iranian forces occupied Basra port in the
south of the country, a vital supply line for Iraq.
Saddam apparently calmly walked into the command room
and told his assembled military brass, "Destroy the
entire port and make sure no Iranian gets out alive."
This they did, with no prisoners taken.
In the
1991 Gulf War US troops trapped a number of Iraqi forces
while they were withdrawing from Kuwait and began to
bomb them. At this time the Kurds in the north of the
country stood up against Saddam, while Shi'ites in the
south also began to rebel against Saddam and his
Sunni-dominated regime. Iranian forces even entered Iraq
to lend support to the rebellions. Saddam's response was
to totally cut off the two regions, and then send in his
bombers. Those who witnessed Saddam issuing the orders
say that it took him just moments, and that he seemed
more preoccupied with replacing an old paper weight on
his desk.
The Shi'ite and Kurdish rebellions
were crushed with huge loss of life. Chemical weapons
are known to have been used.
Military sources
within Iraq believe that the US plans to rain thousands
of missiles onto Iraq's strategic installations to make
the country impotent once and for all. However, these
same sources say that there is a possibility that Iraq
might attempt to launch preemptive attacks on Turkey,
Israel, Kuwait and even US warships in the Persian Gulf
region. Despite UN inspectors finding no firm evidence,
many people in Iraq believe, or perhaps want to believe,
that Saddam will magically be able to pull from
somewhere weapons of mass destruction, and the means to
deliver them.
As in 1991, the north and the
south of Iraq (Shi'ites in Basra and Kurds in the north)
are likely to rebel once the fighting stars. But, as
before, Saddam could turn his own guns against them, and
then consolidate himself in Baghdad for a lengthy battle
that some say he will take to every street. At present,
few bunkers are visible around Baghdad, but the
outskirts of the capital are known to be very heavily
mined.
The chances of a coup against Saddam are
low. In his years in power he has created an elaborate
regime in which he has his finger on every pulse -
especially those pulses that don't beat in time with
his. From the lowliest footsoldiers to the generals, any
whiff of treason will surely be swiftly detected.
People outside the country tend to forget that
in his long time in power Saddam has slowly and
gradually changed the dynamics of Iraqi society. In the
pre-Saddam era, Iraq was ruled by the elites. But they
have been replaced by the stock from which Saddam comes,
the peasants, and especially those from his clan, the
Albu-Ghafur. These are the same simple peasants who had
never before seen televisions or simple machines until
they joined Saddam's "gang". And, of course, family.
Like most Arab dictators, he has appointed close kin to
key government positions.
This was the first
stage. In the second stage, Saddam meticulously
neutralized any leader in the Ba'ath Party who showed
the slightest sign of discontent or discord, so much so
that nowadays Ba'ath is just another name for Saddam's
dictatorship.
After the Gulf War, Islamic
scholars became the new faces added to parliament and
introduced as new power pillars.
These three
pillars - family, peasant clansmen, and clergy -
although somewhat contradictory, serve to mutually
support and monitor each other, and have been fused into
Saddam's political fiefdom. Their roots stretch from the
bottom to the top of society, and they might not be as
easy to topple as some would have it.
(©2003
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