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THE
ROVING EYE
Saddam everywhere but nowhere to be
seen
By Pepe Escobar
TIKRIT
and TARAMIYA - A replica of the al-Aqsa mosque in
Jerusalem still greets the visitor at the sole entrance
gate to Tikrit - the Meonia Tigrides (Tigris Tower) of
the Romans. The city is the birth place of Saladin, the
icon of the Arab world who forced the Crusaders from
Jerusalem in the 14th century. The city was destroyed by
Mongol ruler Tamerlane later in that century and its
people massacred to punish their resistance. Tamerlane
then erected an immense pyramid with the skulls of his
victims.
This time there was no resistance
against the American army when they arrived at the city,
which also happens to be the home town of Saddam
Hussein. Tikrit just folded. But Saddam's imprint is
still everywhere to be seen.
Every lamp post in
the avenue that leads to central Tikrit still boasts a
Saddam picture - with rifle, as a Bedouin or in suit in
the officially-sanctioned 1960s black and white pose.
Saddam art is still on display around town - his images
turned into masterpieces of abstract expressionism, but
sometimes still visible: Saddam the peasant, Saddam
leading the (invincible? invisible?) Republican Guards
under a constellation of fighter jets. But the
Americans, according to residents, couldn't resist
toppling a Saddam equestrian statue near the city
center.
Saddam was not actually born in Tikrit
but in Owja - a village in the outskirts of the city.
This later housed the so-called Uday palace: a mixture
of huge California condo and Southeast Asian resort on
the top of a hill overlooking the city, complete with
spinning wheel for kids and nuns in the garden, now
thoroughly burned and looted. The whole area belongs to
the Albu Nasr clan. Influential Albu Nasr and Albu Majid
clan members - the elite of Saddam's regime - all fled.
Their mansions, and the streets of Owja, are empty. Most
in America's most wanted list - the 55 in a pack of
cards - had homes in Owja, including top figures of the
Ahmn-al-Kaas and the Mukhabarat, the secret services.
Black banners displayed outside a central mosque
celebrate a local "martyr", Tariq al-Hazar, a former
Iraqi air force pilot whose car was hit by an American
missile. Tikritis are now being fed two hours a day of
American-sponsored TV, as well as radio, part of the
Iraqi Information Net ("the new voice of Iraq") - but
they hardly pay attention to it: they prefer listening
to Kathim Alsaher, an exile in Canada, favorite of
Saddam's son Uday (who received a brand new limo every
year from Alsaher) and known as "the Iraqi song
ambassador to the world".
The billion-dollar
question in Tikrit is inescapable: Where is Saddam?
"Saddam is in every house of every Iraqi," says a man in
Bedouin dress. The occupation won't stand: "If the
Americans stay more than six months, we will destroy
them."
The (former) Tikrit hotel is a scene of
devastation. It is still being looted. A woman looter
yells to her daughter: "Shut up. Don't say we are from
Tikrit." Yellow arrival cards - in English - signed by
the front office cashier, are scattered among the
rubble. Locals confront the foreign visitor: "This is
terrorism. It's a civilian building. The Americans
bombed it four times." Locals say there were six dead
and 51 wounded.
Welcome to the pleasure dome:
Saddam's sprawling main palace in Tikrit, its main
entrance flanked by giant twin statues of Saddam riding
a horse above four missiles. The palace was thoroughly
bombed, and is now a converted marine camp, complete
with Mississippi Delta blues soundtrack and guided tour
for the visiting media. Tikritis have a different take:
"The palaces are for the Iraqi people. Saddam came to
the main palace only once, four years ago. And he got to
swim in the river."
In the village of Owainat,
locals still pay tribute to "President Saddam Hussein,
God bless him." On the way back to Baghdad, we stop in
Taramiya - by the Diala river, around 40 kilometers
northeast of the capital. The luxurious landscape would
fit Malaysia or southern Thailand. Palm trees shade
mud-brick houses and narrow alleys. "People who live
here are very rich. There are very good houses inland,"
says a trader with vast contacts in the community.
Most people belong to the Albu Shibli clan. The
infamous Chemical Ali (whom the trader says is still
alive) told the original inhabitants to leave these
grounds and then took possession of the riverside.
Chemical Ali, otherwise General Ali Hassan al-Majid, a
cousin of Saddam, masterminded the gas attacks on Kurds
in northern Iraq in 1988 in which at least 5,000 people
were killed in a single day.
"Most people here
love Saddam Hussein. I'm sure he is hiding here," said
the grinning trader. Saddam indeed owns a lot of land in
Taramiya - although many locals cultivating their
vegetable gardens don't know it. "Look at all these
trees. Americans wouldn't find Saddam Hussein behind all
these trees." The trader adds that Mahmoud Thiab
al-Ahmed, the powerful former minister of internal
security - also featured in the Americans' 55 playing
cards - is hiding in Taramiya, where his family live.
Saddam as a ghost may soon be added to those
splendid murals of Saddam art still visible all over
Iraq. Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi, the
Pentagon's pet Iraqi and self-styled successor to
Saddam, says that the infamous Tikriti is alive and
roaming around Iraq. Chalabi was sentenced to 22 years
of hard labor in 1992 after he was tried in absentia for
disappearing with US$60 million from the Petra Bank in
Jordan.
Many Iraqis - and especially Tikritis -
despise him, but for once Chalabi may be right. Saddam
and the regime's elite have managed to melt away - maybe
behind those palm trees in Taramiya - and they still
haunt the Iraqi collective subconscious.
(©2003
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