Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein 0060929839, 9780060929831

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MARIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY

3 1111 01886 1292

S

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— USA

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^3 world has changed since

1990.

i

$38.00

he cold war

has ended, the Soviet Union has disappeared,

new

governments have taken power in Washington and around the globe. But one familiar, dreaded face still looms over the international landscape that of

—

Saddam Hussein. At the end of the Gulf War,

the White

House was

num-

confident that the Iraqi dictator's days were

bered. His army had been routed, his country had

been bombed back into a preindustrial age, his subjects were in bloody revolt, his borders were sealed. It seemed impossible that he could survive such disasters. World leaders waited confidently for the downfall of the pariah of Baghdad.

Almost a decade This

the

is

first

later,

they are

still

waiting.

in-depth account of what went

wrong. Drawing on the authors' firsthand experiences

on the ground inside Iraq (often under fire) and their ranging from members interviews with key players

—

of Saddam's

own

family to senior officials of the

CIA

what happened when the smoke of the Gulf War. Leaders battlefields the cleared from of the uprising that almost toppled the dictator

Out of the Ashes

tells

describe the desperate mission they undertook to plead for American help and how they were turned away.

We

learn of Saddam's secret plan to fool and

corrupt the

scheme

UN

initially

officials explain

opposition

weapons inspectors and how the went awry. Senior U.S. intelligence

what they

really

thought of the Iraqi

movement they helped

to create.

An

agent

on the CIA bombs in Baghdad. While U.S. officials grappled with the ongoing payroll recounts his exploits planting

crisis

;em^5.j

of Saddam's survival, the Iraqi leader himself

presided over a regime dominated by his own terrifying family Here is die full story of that family "animals," as one former intimate describes them and

its

vicious feuds, including the downfall of the

man who once and

stood at Saddam's right hand.

This tale of high drama, labyrinthine intrigue, fatal blunders has been played out amid one of

the greatest

man-made

inn of

tragedies of our times. At the

outset, U.S. leaders resolved that "Iran'

{continued on back flap)

i

pay the

d

J.

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Civic Center New Books 956. 7044 Cockburn Cockburn, Andrew Out of the ashes the resurrection of Saddam * Hussein 31111018861292 :

DATE DUE 4 1999

MAY JIIW

1999

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1999

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[1AY 2 3 2003

Cat

No 2.^?7l

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2010

http://www.archive.org/details/outofashesresurrOOcock

Out of the Ashes

Also by Andrew Cockburn: The Threat: Inside the Soviet Military Machine Dangerous Liaison: The

U.S. -Israeli

Covert Connection

(with Leslie Cockburn)

One

Point Safe: The Leaking Russian Nuclear Arsenal (with Leslie Cockburn)

Also by Patrick Cockburn: Getting Russia Wrong: The

End of Kremlinology

Out of the Ashes The Resurrection df Saddam Hussein

Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn

¥i.a.rperCo\\msPHhlishers

OUT OF THE ASHES. Copyright © 1999 by Andrew and Patrick Cockbum. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations

embodied

in critical articles

HarperCollins PuWishers,

and reviews. For information address 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY

Inc.,

10022.

HarperCoUins books may be purchased sales

Department, HarperCollins Publishers,

New York, NY FIR.ST

for educational, business, or

promotional use. For information please write: Special Markets 10022.

EDITION

Designed by Kris Tobaissen

Map by

Paul J. Pugliese

ISBN 0-06-019266-6 99 00 01 02 03

/RRD

10

9876 5 4321

Inc.,

10 East 53rd Street,

For Chloe, Henry,

Olivia, Alexander,

and Charlie

Contents Acknowledgments 1.

2.

xiii

Saddam AT THE Abyss ''We Have

3

Saddam Hussein Still Here"

31

3.

The Origins of Saddam Hussein

58

4.

Saddam Fights for His Long Arm

86

5.

"Iraqis

Will Pay the Price"

114

6.

Uday and the Royal Family

140

7.

Intrigue in the Mountains

164

8.

Deaths

191

9.

"Bring

in

the Family

Me the Head of Saddam

Hussein"

211

10.

Saddam Moves North

231

11.

Uday Takes A Hit

251

12.

Endgame

263

Postscript

287

Notes

291

Index

311

Acknowledgments

This

book has been made possible by the

kindnesses of many people over the years

and

insights, advice,

we have covered

Iraq.

To name them all would be impossible and, in the case of some, unwise. We must however extend special thanks to our editor Terry Karten for her patience, loyalty, and unwavering eye for a redundancy

as well as to

her indefatigable

agent, Elizabeth Kaplan,

was there

Megan Barrett. Our when we needed her. Faith

assistant,

Rubenstein performed invaluable service on the research

front.

Out of the Ashes

ONE

Saddam

Fifty

Abyss

at the

miles from the capital, returning Iraqi soldiers could already

see the black cloud over the blazing al-Dohra

edge of Baghdad.

It

its

refinery

on the

was early March 1991, and these exhausted

men were the remnants of the huge army sent after

oil

to

occupy Kuwait

conquest by Saddam Hussein the previous year. Now,

routed by the United States and

they were in the

its allies,

last stages

of a three-hundred-mile flight from the battlefields.

They were

—anything

on wheels.

crowded

into taxis, trucks, battered buses

One group

clung desperately to a car transporter.

Soon they were six

inside the city only to find

weeks before, the low-lying

had been a from the

rich

modem

city,

Iraqi capital

on the banks of the

third-largest oil reserves in the world.

and communications

utterly changed. Just

modem

Expressways and over-

hotels,

centers. Lavishly

government build-

equipped hospitals gave

the citizens medical care as good as could be found in

United

States.

Even the poor were used

Then, beginning

and

missiles

at

Tigris

built with the billions of dollars flowing

passes sped traffic past gleaming ings,

it

Europe or the

to eating chicken

once a

3:00 A.M. on January 17, precisely targeted

had thrust Baghdad and

abruptly back into the third world.

its

day.

bombs

3.5 million inhabitants

OUT DF THE ASHES There was no power because knocked out huddled

in darkness.

more prosperous

power

the

all

stations

had been

bombing. The people of the

city

The stench of decaying meat hung over

the

in the first days of

districts as steaks in carefully

stocked freezers

slowly rotted. In the hospitals, doctors trained in the finest medical

schools in

Europe operated by

flashlight.

Like any advanced society, Iraq had been

Water came from the wide

electricity.

the

and

efficient

brought a

systems in the world.

muddy brown

through

pumps

at

city

one

an up-to-date sewage system,

and every day 15 million gallons of untreated

hit,

sewage poured into the cars

a jury-rigged system

the treatment plants had been silent since the power

generators had been

Few

Now

liquid spluttering out of the taps for just

hour a day. Oil billions had given the but the

dependent on

pumped and purified by what had been one of the most mod-

city,

em

totally

Tigris River that flows

moved

Tigris.

along the

streets

and tree-lined avenues

because the gas stations had long since exhausted their supplies and al-Dohra, along with

other Iraqi refineries, had been smashed in

all

the bombing. In the sparse exliausts of some vehicles, a

on the black market

at a

traffic, black smoke poured from the symptom of watered-down gas available

hundred times the prewar price.

Familiar landmarks lay in ruins, like the handsome Jumhuriya

Bridge across the Tigris in the city center,

now

little

ers

by aUied

trisected

bombs. Surviving bridges had old sacking draped over the

sides

saplings tied to the railings, a vain effort to deceive the

and

laser-targeting systems of the

authority,

shells, their insides

first

of

glance seemingly

gutted by high explosives.

The phones had stopped working when two hit the

comput-

enemy weapons. Symbols

the Ministry of Justice, at

like

untouched, were empty

and

laser-guided

bombs had

communications center across from the Mansour Melia Hotel

and melted the

satellite

dishes on the roof, isolating Iraqis from the

outside world and each other.

The of

air

was

full

tires set alight

restaurants

of smoke from the burning refinery and from piles

during the war to confuse allied warplanes. The

on Sadoun Street were shuttered and empty, replaced by

curbside cooking

fires

fueled by branches torn from trees by the

bombs. Over everything there hung the yellow haze of a winter

fog.

SADDAM

AT THE ABYSS

Somewhere beneath the gloom was the man who had caused the President Saddam Hussein, his tlioughts and actions, even his

disaster,

whereabouts

dramatic days, a mystery to his people and to the

in those

outside world. Physically,

of

crisis

he had changed since the war had begun. In the months

between

his invasion

of Kuwait on August

2,

1990, and the

of the United States-led counterattack in January 1991, the Iraqi

start

leader had played to a global audience. Sleek in the beautiful

created by his Armenian

tailor,

Saddam had sat in his

silk suits

palaces declaim-

ing to visiting statesmen and journalists on the justice of that invasion,

defying the international coahtion that was building up

its

forces to

oust him.

Now the president of Iraq moved the run. Like the rest of the high stay out of the

underground command bunkers

against the Iranians in the 1980s.

would did

about his capital

He had known

carefully target these places

penetrate the thickest concrete.

still

he was sleeping

man on

careful to

built for the

that the

in a different

The bombing had

—and

stopped,

house every few nights,

ing mainly in the middle-class al-Tafiya district of the

war

Americans

and that their bombs could

—

but

like a

command, he had been

city,

stay-

quiet

because many of its inhabitants had fled Baghdad.

Once upon a time, Saddam had sought to confuse potential assassins about his movements by deploying whole fleets of identical Mercedeses, choosing the convoy he

would use only at the

last

minute and

dispatching the others in different directions as a distraction. These

days

Saddam drove only

by a

single

rank.

The few

figure.

war.

bodyguard

in cheap, inconspicuous cars,

—a colonel who himself wore no and intimates he

trusted aides

He had

lost as

accompanied

much

as forty

pounds

visited

insignia of

saw a shrunken

in the first

month of the

Now the olive-green uniform of his ruhng Baath Party hung ever

more loosely on him.

"I don't

know what God wiU bring tomorrow," he

remarked despairingly to one of his intelligence OfficiaUy, his

defeat of his

in denial, issuing statements that the

army in Kuwait had been

pation of that that Iraq

government was

little

would

oil-rich

try again.

camped on the lower

floors

chiefs.

a liistoric victory, that the occu-

kingdom had been

justified,

The few remaining

even hinting

foreign journalists

of the al-Rashid Hotel (the elevators had

OUT OF THE ASHES long since stopped running) found Ministry of Information censors still

routinely changing the phrase "defeat of the Iraqi

army

in the

south" to read "the fate of the Iraqi army in the south" even as Iraqi generals were meekly accepting conditions laid

down by the victorious

allies.

To

tlie

few trusted aides permitted

exhibited a greater sense of

reality.

in his presence, the dictator

One

of these was a stocky forty-

four-year-old general, the chief of military intelligence, Wafiq

many

Samarrai, who, Hke

otlier

ranking servants of the regime,

sported a mustache trimmed in the style of his leader

ued

He had made

during the bitter eight-year war with Iran. Saddam

his reputation

his professional

al-

judgment and had been

visiting his

val-

emergency

headquarters almost every day since the Americans had started bombing Baghdad. (Anticipating that

uated his prewar

bombs.)

On

command

it

post days before

it

was duly crushed by

the day after the allied armies began to sweep, almost un-

opposed, through Kuwait, Saddam fession of error "In

"nobody

would be a target, al-Samarrai evac-

two hundred

made a rare though roundabout conyears,"

he remarked

to al-Samarrai,

will realize that this

was a wrong estimate about what would

Saddam

Hussein's great gamble in August 1990,

happen." "This" had been that

he could surprise the world by seizing the

Kuwait on

his

little oil

southern border and get away with

failed, just as his

it.

bet a decade earlier that he could invade his neigh-

bor Iran, then in postrevolutionary chaos, had landed him eight-year stalemate. least ultimately

emirate of

The gamble had

The war

against Ayatollah

in a

bloody

Khomeini had

at

garnered him a partial victory, a de facto alliance with

the United States, and the strongest military forces in the Persian Gulf.

But the Iran-Iraq war had

also cost the lives of

hundreds of

thousands of Iraqis and, more important for Saddam, had saddled

him with $80 refill his

billion in debts.

coffers

Kuwait had been a wager that he could

and secure a whip hand over the world s most impor-

tant oil-producing region, but

he had not expected the consequences

of losing to be so terrible.

The seemed

invasion of Kuwait

had been

his idea alone.

At

first

it

a brilliant success. Saddam's elite divisions had overrun the

country in hours, sending the Kuwaiti royal family fleeing over their

SADDAM

AT THE ABYSS

southern border into Saudi Arabia. The United States and the rest of the world had been caught entirely off guard. As his Republican

Guards had massed on the Kuwaiti border the consensus of opinion that

he would

among

the end of July 1990,

at

those watching his moves had been

worst merely seize part of the northern Kuwaiti

at

Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told an interviewer that sion

had indeed been the

eschewed

this cautious

Saddam has

often

this

hmited inva-

original plan. At the last minute,

approach and went

been prone

all

oil

Deputy

field and possibly two disputed offshore islands. Later,

Saddam

the way.

to sudden, unpredictable gambits.

At a high-level meeting in September 1979, soon after he seized total

power

in Iraq,

he even delivered a brief homily on the

"What

tactics as a political principle.

stalled president tics is

when you

utility

of such

politics?" the recently in-

is

asked rhetorically in his slightly

shrill voice.

"Poh-

say you are going to do one thing while intending to

do another. Then you do neither what you said or what you intended." That way, he suggested, no one could predict what you

were going

to do.

Along with

this taste for

element of fatalism

sudden

rolls

in the Iraqi leader.

of the dice, there was a strong

He

once told King Hussein of

Jordan that ever since his narrow escape after trying and assassinate Iraqi president

that every extra

Abd

day of life was a

have died then," he declared. power. senior

by a

failing to

al-Karim Qassim in 1959, he had gift

He

from God.

"I

felt

consider myself to

acknowledged only one greater

On a visit to Kuwait after his conquest, he talked to thirty of his commanders.

A tape of the meeting, later smuggled out of Iraq

dissident, records

him describing the

sianic mission. "This decision to invade

invasion as part of his mes-

Kuwait we received almost

ready-made from God," he says. "Our role is simply to carry it out." The audience response was limited to shouts of "God is great." If Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, Saddam s perennial voice to the outside world, to the leader late

March

is

to

be believed, he did

at least try to

point out

what the consequences of the invasion might be. In

1991, Aziz

cian Zeid Rifai, for the

met with an old first

friend, the Jordanian politi-

time since the invasion of Kuwait. "What

did you people think you were doing?" asked Rifai. "Didn't you realize

what would happen

if

you seized Kuwait?"

OUT OF THE ASHES "The leadership made some mistakes," mumbled a slightly crestfallen Aziz, a dangerous enough admission to anyone but an old

They both knew who

friend.

"Well,

why didn't you

"I did,"

"the leadership" was.

and

try

him out of it?"

talk

Aziz explained. Just before the Iraqi army crossed the bor-

Saddam had finally revealed the full dimensions of the plan to members of his cabinet, who were unaware that the limited incursion

der,

originally

rect

way

planned had been

taking. "I said. terattack.

chose an indi-

drastically enlarged. Aziz

to point out to the boss that this could

The Americans may come

be a perilous under-

to Saudi Arabia

and coun-

Why don't we go all the way and take Saudi Arabia too?' " In

hoped that his master might on the hazards of the invasion plan. But Saddam took it straight,

suggesting an even bigger gamble, he reflect

gently chiding Aziz for his impetuosity.

"In that circle, the safest course

is

always to be ten percent

more

hawkish than the chief," says one veteran Russian diplomat long

sta-

tioned in Baghdad. "You stay out of trouble that way."

There was no one

left to

was on the verge of defeat generals had secured

they had

soon

as

U.S.

Navy

stand up to Saddam. In 1986,

in

its

war with

some leeway in

Iran, the professional

in

1989

won a narrow victory with the active help of the Persian Gulf, Saddam got rid of them. Some were Adnan

Khairallah Tulfah,

cousin but widely liked and respected in the army, died

in a helicopter crash during a sandstorm. It

violence of Iraqi politics that everybody in

dam had

army

finally

in the

first

Iraq

directing military operations. As

executed, others retired. Defense Minister

Saddam's

when

is

a

measure of the

Baghdad assumed that Sad-

arranged for the helicopter to be sabotaged, though the

storm was violent enough to blow the roof off the headquarters of military intelligence.

Queried by a foreign interviewer about

the mihtary during the Iran-Iraq war,

his

purges of

Saddam was less than reassuring:

"Only two divisional commanders and the head of a mechanized unit have been executed. That's quite normal

in war."

Once installed in Kuwait, Saddam utterly failed to appreciate the game he had started, and continued to overplay his hand. At the end of August, he met Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and Abu lyad, Arafat's chief lieutenant,

attempt to mediate. "If

I

make

who were

in

Baghdad

a peace proposal,"

in a vain

Saddam

told the

SADDAM Palestinians, "then I'm the If the others

AT THE ABYSS

one who

propose one, then

But President George Bush,

had

in Saudi Arabia,

and

less

will

have to make concessions.

can obtain concessions."

I

steadily building

up

military strength

Saddam

reason to compromise.

less

wholly underestimated the strength of the coalition that was about to

he appealed to Arab and Muslim

attack him. Just before the war, darity by,

among

soli-

other measures, redesigning the Iraqi flag to include

the Islamic rallying cry "Allah Akbar"

—"God

is

great." Iraq did enjoy

popular sympathy in the Arab world, but no powerful friends. Saddam

had invaded Kuwait old

had gone

ally,

at the

moment

very

into terminal decline.

that the Soviet Union, Iraq's

He had

failed to

understand

the military superiority of the American-led alliance, entertaining the fantasy that

from the

if

air

there was fighting, his troops could withstand

and could

heavy casualties on any

inflict

In the secret meeting with his

assault.

the war, he told

them

The

be

in vain.

.

.

.

seems

truth

tle

to

was done

to

pilots

Little

time. If you

do

this, their

[bomb-

meeting between Tariq Aziz and Sec-

five

days before the war.

prepare ordinary Iraqis for war.

Even

When

then, ht-

allied planes

on the morning of January 17, their were astonished to discover that there was no blackout and

that the Iraqi capital istries

ground

have dawned on Saddam that war was

James Baker

approached Baghdad

allied

Kuwait before

On the ground the battle wiU be another story."

inevitable only after a fruitless

retary of State

in

that during aUied air raids they should "stay

motionless underground just a ing] will

commanders

bombing

were

Some

at 2:58

was

"fit

up

Las Vegas." Government min-

like

floodlit.

of the population

still

trusted their leader to avoid war.

Trainers at the racetrack in Mansour, a fashionable district

eign embassies in the center of Baghdad, were

horses on the afternoon before the delusions as to what war would

first

still

bombast about "the mother of Pro-government

of for-

bomb attacks. No one had any

mean if it did come. Despite Saddam's all

battles," the feeling in the streets

was resigned, with few expectations other than the defeat.

full

walking race-

ralfies in

inevitability of

Baghdad just before the war started

consisted entirely of schoolchildren assembled by officials of the rul-

ing Baath Party.

The

largest public

meeting

in the city in the days

before the bombing turned out to be a gathering of pigeon-racing

DUTDFTHEASHES

ID

Nor were the

enthusiasts.

There was

war.

on

little

Iraqis ill-informed

about the approaching

Iraqi radio or television, but people spent

hours listening to foreign radio stations in Arabic, switching from the

BBC to Monte Carlo to Voice of America.

"Our main hobby

is

listen-

ing to die radio," one Iraqi told us at the time. In the days before the

many as 1 million out of 3.5 million people in Baghdad They feared that if Iraq fired a Scud with a chemical or warhead at Tel Aviv, Israel would respond with a nuclear

bombing, left

the

as

city.

biological strike.

At the

start

of the bombing, an old

cafe near Nasr Square explained

edged

story.

He

man drinking tea in a dilapidated

what he thought, using a double-

repeated the old Koranic

tale

how once

of

Abyssinians brought elephants to conquer Mecca. At

first

"the

the bedouin

warriors were dismayed by the strange beast, but

God

sent birds to

Mecca who dropped

killed

them." Sad-

dam

stones

on the elephants and

himself had recently told the same

story,

adding

just learned the significant fact that the elephant

tliat

he had only

was the syinbol of

President Bush's Republican Party. But unlike the Iraqi leader, the old

man

told the story with exaggerated gestures, to the

from the others the message birds, Iraq

in the cafe.

seemed

clear:

last

dissident

had no hope against the aUied elephants.

The mood among the

sound of giggles

word was expressed, but Unless God could come up with magical Not a

the soldiers was scarcely

days of peace,

talked to soldiers.

They were,

conversations were

"Where

Saddam

full

more

optimistic. In

visited the trenches in

plainly, terrified

by

Kuwait and

his presence.

The

of agonizing pauses.

are you from?" he asked one.

"Sulaimaniya, in Kurdistan."

"How are

the people in Sulaimaniya?"

"They support you."

A

general

who

later fled to exile in

England explained

to us that

the low morale in the army in Kuwait at the start of the fighting was

not because of superior allied weapons.

weapons.

"We knew

all

about these

We were all circulated with a newsletter about such devel-

opments." They simply thought they had been led into an insane enterprise.

maneuver."

"We

didn't expect a war.

We thought it was

all

a poUtical

SADDAM If

AT THE ABYSS

Saddam was aware of his

He was under no

subjects' views,

illusion that

a family

little

attention.

they actually liked him. Long before,

soon after the 1968 coup that had put

dam had spoken witli

he paid

his Baatli Party in

power, Sad-

who had come to complain that one of "Do not tliink you will get revenge,"

tliem had been unjustly executed.

he had said then.

"If you ever

have the chance, by the time you get to

us there will not be a sliver of flesh there would be too

many

left

on our bodies."

He meant that

others waiting in line to tear

him and

his

associates apart.

Since that time, his host

and

Saddam had ehminated

potential rivals while

all

of secret police and intelligence agencies visited immediate

terrible

punishment on anyone manifesting, the moment they

were detected, the shghtest

signs of political discontent.

from Ouija ("the crooked one"), a

He came

typical Iraqi village of flat-roofed

brick houses, just outside the decayed textile town of Tikrit, perched

on the bank of the

Tigris a

hundred miles north of Baghdad. Even

before Saddam, the Tikritis were official

known for their violence. A British World War spoke of "their

writing soon after the First

ancient reputation for savagery and brutality."

town

to the ground.

who were in turn members formed expected

little

Saddams

He favored razing the

family belonged to the Bejat clan,

linked to the tribes in and around Tikrit. Their

the core of Saddam's regime and consequently

mercy

if

he

Tikritis like the

fell.

Saddam

belonged to the Sunni branch of Islam. Sunnis, who the center and north of the country, total Iraqi population,

army and the

live

family

mostly in

make up only 20 percent of the

but they dominated the upper ranks of the

administration, as they

had since the days when Iraq

was part of the Ottoman Empire.

The

majority of Iraqis were Shia Muslims, like the Iranians across

the eastern border Concentrated in Baghdad and on the great plain of

soudiem Iraq

Arabia, they provided

seldom allowed to

that stretches

much of the

all

the

rank and

rise to positions

way file

to

flat

Kuwait and Saudi

for the

army but were

of influence in any Iraqi regime.

Since the Baathists had seized control of Iraq, the power of both the political parties

they supported and the traditional Shia

had been whittled away.

If tlie Shia

side the government,

was

it

showed

loyalty to

tribal sheiklis

any figures out-

to tlieir reUgious leaders.

Saddam had

aUTQFTHEASHES

12 instituted a

thorough purge of such figures in the early stages of

confrontation witli Iran.

The Kurds

in the

problem than the saw themselves

The

had remained

survivors

his

quiet.

mountainous north had always been more of a

Non-Arab Sunni MusHms, the Kurds of Iraq a separate community and had resented rule

Shia.

as

from Baghdad even

in the days

when

the British held sway there. In

the early 1970s, backed by the United States and the shah of Iran,

they had launched a fierce insurgency that was defeated only

when

they were betrayed by their foreign friends. During the Iranian war of the 1980s, some of their leaders had again risen in rebellion and

Saddam had

retaliated

by showering poison gas on Kurdish

and by ordering a program of mass executions that two hundred thousand Kurds. In addition Iraqi leader

cities

civilians

many as

to this holocaust, the

had wiped four thousand Kurdish

herding their inhabitants into

killed as

villages off the

map,

and refugee camps under the

ever-suspicious eyes of his secret police. In the

months of crisis

that

followed Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, the principal Kurdish leaders,

Massoud Barzani and

Jalal Talabani,

seemed

to have learned

their lesson, pledging loyalty to the Iraqi leader in his confrontation

with the

allies.

Prior to the invasion of Kuwait

and the threat

to world oil supplies,

Saddams murderous regime evoked few complaints in the outside world. Even when he took to gassing his Kurdish subjects, governments

in

Washington, London, and other Western capitals stayed

mute, grateful that he was fighting the Islamic Republic of Iran. strictly

enforced

rule, laid

A

down after a meeting between Jalal Talabani

and a mid-level State Department

official in

1988 had drawn an angry

protest from Baghdad, forbade any U.S. government

official

meeting with any of the exiled Iraqi opposition groups. In 1991,

from as the

United States and other members of the coalition began bombing Iraqi cities, there dictator.

The

was no move

universal assumption abroad

efficient police state,

in a

to rouse the people of Iraq against their

where even

was that

spilling coffee

in

such a viciously

on the leaders picture

newspaper could bring swift punishment, there was no prospect of

any challenge to the regime from below.

Then, on February

15, a full

month

into the war. President

Bush suddenly spoke direcdy to ordinary

Iraqis.

Twice that

George

day, at the

SADDAM White House and

AT THE ABYSS

at a missile plant in

carefully phrased call for revolt, calling

13

Massachusetts, he repeated a

on "the

and the

Iraqi military

own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside." The appeal had been conceived of Iraqi people to take matters into their

as

an incitement to the Iraqi military to stage a coup, and the "Iraqi

people" had been included only as an afterthought, but the effects

were

far-reaching.

The

president s unequivocal words were broadcast

on every international channel heard the

call. It

planes were

seemed

to

that reached Iraq,

them

and miUions of Iraqis

at wiU,

Saddam s enemy, whose had asked them to join his

largely

by Shia and Kurdish con-

that Bush,

bombing the country

invincible coalition.

The army scripts,

in Kuwait,

manned

was already unwilling

realized that the "political

to die for

maneuver" had

Saddam. Once they had failed,

they had begun to

vote with their feet. Captain Azad Shirwan, an intelligence officer

with a tank brigade stationed on the front lines in Kuwait, remembers that by the time the allied ground offensive started on February 24, most of the positions

men in his unit had disappeared.

were mostly defended by

had deserted."

diers

officers,

When Saddam

"In our brigade,

because the private

sol-

suddenly ordered a general

withdrawal from Kuwait the day after the allied ground offensive began, the disintegration became

The disappearance of the

who

total.

Iraqi troops

bemused the

allied generals,

had, in any case, vastly exaggerated the strength of their enemy.

"What

really

amazes

me

is

the lack of bodies," exclaimed General

Charles Homer, the U.S. Air Force commander. "There weren't a of dead people around.

I

think a lot of Iraqis just

left." Later,

government deliberately avoided quantifying the enemy dead that a fact,

ties

huge number would serve

as useful

low.

"We

for fear

propaganda for Saddam. In

the available evidence suggests that the

was extraordinarily

lot

the U.S.

number

of Iraqi casual-

didn't lose a single officer over the

rank of brigadier," says General al-Samarrai, who, as head of military intelligence,

was

Casualties

in a position to know.

among

the lower ranks were also

village, Tulaiha, just off the

150

men were

called

up

Hamzi, the mukhtar, or

light.

In one small

main road between Baghdad and Kut,

to the

army during the Gulf War. Hassan none of them

village leader, insisted that

DUTOFTHEASHES

14-

was

wounded. The only

killed or

casualties

were two men captured.

This compared with thirty dead and eleven prisoners from Tulaiha

during the Iran-Iraq war While Iraq

lost

2,100 tanks in Kuwait, U.S.

damage-assessment teams found that only 10 percent had been destroyed in battle. The rest had been abandoned. In the soldiers

few days of February, hundreds of thousands of angry

last

were streaming out of Kuwait, bitter at Saddam Hussein for war they could not win. Hard on the heels of the disap-

starting a

pearing enemy, the aUied armies swept through Kuwait and across the border into Iraq

Saddam thought they might be coming

itself.

for him. In the final days of the war,

gence headquarters with

his

he turned up

powerful and

Abed Hamid Mahmoud. "Abed Hamid to Baghdad,"

The general right

he said

by cahing a

sinister private secretary.

thinks the allies are

coming

General al-Samarrai. "What do you think?"

to

disagreed.

at military intelU-

On

February 28, George Bush proved him

cease-fire; the allied onslaught halted in

its

tracks.

Though his Kuwaiti adventure had turned into a colossal disaster, Saddam now thought the crisis had ended. "After the cease-fire, he thought everything was finished," explains al-Samarrai. fact, just

was, in

beginning.

When he revolt.

ters in

It

first

heard the news that Iraqis themselves had risen

General al-Samarrai was

at

in

the emergency headquar-

which he had spent the war, unmolested by the American

bombers. The tidings came

phone call from Basra, far to the An army general, Hamid Shakar, had been driving to Baghdad with one bodyguard when unknown rebels had attacked and killed him near a paper mill thirty miles in a

south and near the Kuwaiti border.

north of Basra. al-Samarrai contacted Saddam, headquarters.

He had just

who rushed to the when the phone

arrived, visibly worried,

rang again. al-Samarrai picked

it

up and recognized the voice of

General Nizar Khazraji, the commander of the entire southwest of the country, with his headquarters in Nassariyah, two hundred miles

from Baghdad.

"The rebels are trying

to attack us," Khazraji shouted.

Baghdad of the seriousness of his

situation,

To convince

he held up the phone,

say-

SADDAM ing,

AT THE ABYSS

"Don't you hear the sound of the bullets?"

15

The connection was

poor and al-Samarrai could hear nothing over the crackling. The

commander pleaded for a hehcopter to rescue him. Saddam, who was still sitting in my headquarters, what was

besieged

"I told

happening

Nassariya and he ordered a helicopter to rescue

in

Khazraji," says al-Samarrai.

ing

fast.

But the army in the south was disintegrat-

Shia conscripts were turning on any representative of Sadofficers.

The commander of the

Iraqi helicopter force said that nothing could

be done: "We don't have

dam's government, including senior

any helicopters

besieged headquarters was it

Soon afterward

in the area." lost.

Later

all

contact with the

Saddam and

al-Samarrai heard

had been stormed by the rebels and Khazraji severely wounded.

Fanned by the rage of the revolt spread with the

soldiers streaming out of Kuwait, the

speed of a whirlwind through the

towns of the south. Saddam was

"We were

cities

and

now staring into the face of disaster. mad adventure, when

anxious to withdraw, to end the

Saddam announced withdrawal within twenty-four hours

—though

without any formal agreement to ensure the safety of the retreating forces,"

the

one

allies to

Guard

officer

recounted

wipe us

out:

later.

He had

"We understood

that

he wanted

already withdrawn the Republican

We had to desert our tanks and vehicles to avoid We walked a hundred kilometers toward the Iraqi ter-

to safety.

aerial attacks. ritories,

hungry,

first little

town

thirsty,

and exhausted." Finally they arrived

inside their

own

border. "In Zubair

put an end to Saddam and his regime.

We

at the

we decided

shot at his posters.

to

Hun-

dreds of retreating soldiers came to the city and joined the revolt; by the afternoon, there were thousands of us. Civilians supported us

and demonstrations

started.

We

attacked the party building and the

security services headquarters."

At 3:00 A.M. on the

first

of March, the storm reached Basra, the

ancient, sprawling city at the junction of the Tigris rivers

where

in

and Euphrates

happier days vacationers from teetotal Kuwait had

thronged the hotels and nightclubs in search of a bottle of Johnnie

Walker Black Label.

A single tank gunner expressed his

anger

at

the

debacle by firing a round through a portrait of Saddam Hussein, one of the tens of thousands of such pictures that gazed out on every street

throughout the country. The soldiers around him applauded

QUTaFTHEASHES

16 spontaneous

his

Within hours, the iron control of Saddam and

act.

the Baath Party had been violently cast aside. For the milHons of Iraqis

who had suddenly found

silence,

The

it

was the that

first

ing Hospital,

him

"intifada"

Dr

uprising.

Walid al-Rawi, the administrator of Basra Teach-

knew about

the uprising was

when

a policeman visited

were

starting in small towns and villages band of fifty rebels came to the hospiand took away three patients who were security men, one of whom

to say that incidents

around Basra. "Later that tal

their voices after years of terrified

—the

day, a

diey shot on the hospital grounds." As in

Baath Party

tlie

were die

offices

cities

first

elsewhere in the south,

come under

to

attack.

Mohammed Kassim, the manager of the Basra Tower Hotel, later told us that on the

"They asked

first

if

day of the uprising, armed

them no and they went

recalled. "I told

nearby Sheraton was compliant.

men came

to his hotel.

there were any Baathists staying, or any alcohol," he

They

less persuasive,

away."

The manager of the

or perhaps the rebels were less

set fire to die top stories of die hotel,

burning nine-

teen rooms.

Rampaging dirough the

BATA

Beneath the office,

city,

the rebels

made

a chilling discovery.

shoe company premises opposite the mayors

they found a secret underground prison.

Some

of the hundreds

of prisoners had been shut off from the world so long diat they

shouted

"Down

with al-Bakr" as they were released and led into the

open air. They believed that the president of Iraq was san al-Bakr,

who had been

replaced by

Within days, the intifada had spread to the holy Najaf,

Ahmed Hasin 1979.

cities

and Kufa, the heartland of the Shia reUgious

which 55 percent of

men the

the

still

Saddam Hussein

his sons,

Iraqis belong. Thirteen

of Kerbala, tradition to

hundred years before,

Shia regarded as the Prophet's true heirs.

Imam

Ali

and

Hussein and Abbas, had been martyred here, and their

shrines are the focus of adulation from the 130 million devotees of

the Shia faith around the world. In Najaf, where for a thousand years pilgrims had flocked to the great shrine, city,

its

die allied

golden

dome

bombing had

rising

above die low brick houses of the

killed thirty-five people.

Thirteen

mem-

bers of the al-Habubi family had been crushed by a stick of bombs that

had missed a nearby

electricity substation

and had turned

their

house

SADDAM

AT THE

ABYSS

into a gray concrete sandwich, the floors collapsing

rebels said such horrors only underlined the

protect

its

people from

air attack.

Yusuf al-Hakim, on February

By

IV on each other The

government s

inability to

At the funeral of a religious notable,

14, the

crowd chanted

against

Saddam.

the time the angry rabble of military deserters started straggling

into the city in the

first

two days o£ March, the governments authority

was already fragile. Brigadier

Ali, a

professional officer, was

crowd.

Bom

arrived

home on March

among

the returning

he and many other deserters from the

in Najaf,

Kuwait. "The streets were

city

2 after being "chased like rats" out of full

of deserters. All structure in the army

lost. Everybody was their own boss. News was spreading that someone had shot at Saddam s portrait in Basra." The next day, Ali heard there was to be a demonstration in Imam Ali Square, four hundred yards from the great shrine at the center of the city. "At first there were about a hundred people, many of them army officers from Najaf who had deserted. The security forces were well informed and were there as well. The demonstrators started shouting: 'Saddam, keep your hands off. The people of Najaf don't want you.' The security men opened fire, further infuriating the demonstrators. Only a few of them were armed, but they threw themselves on

was

the

detested but hitherto invulnerable

officials.

Catching one

important local Baath Party functionary, they hacked him to death with knives.

Now more

people had flooded into the area, drawn by

the sound of the shooting. As the security

men continued to

fire,

the

demonstrators ran into the warren of alleys and small shops

between the square and the

shrine.

The

security forces dashed after

them, but the gunfire echoed and reverberated off the walls of the

to their headquarters. It

became confused, lost heart, and retreated had been no more than twenty minutes or

half an hour since the

first

ancient market and they

shouts denouncing Saddam, and the

crowd of teenagers and young men the center of the

city.

in their twenties

now controlled

Their morale soared.

In a few hours, the newly confident crowd took over the shrine of

Imam AH

itself,

a golden

rounded by rooms for

mosque

at

the center of a courtyard sur-

pilgrims. Unlike the rest of Najaf, the shrine

aUTDFTHEASHES

ia

had power from a generator and the demonstrators commandeered loudspeakers, normally used to

people — simple slogans "Seek out the criminals" — and urge a

its

on the security

to prayer, to broadcast

call

In the evening, the insurgents fought their way into the

used

final attack

forces.

as a local headquarters

Iraqi secret police services,

by the

and

Amn

al-Khass,

killed eight or nine

girls'

school

one of the many

people there. They

were increasingly well armed, having seized submachine guns piled

stock-

in schools to arm people in case the allies The headquarters of the Quds division of the

by the government

landed from the

air.

Republican Guard was just outside the

had been sent

to the front

city,

but

all its

combat brigades

and the only garrison consisted of some

when officers among commandeered 82-millimeter mortars and used them to bombard the Baath Party headquarters. "Abdel Amir Jaithoum, my administrative personnel. These did not resist rebels

tlie

old headmaster, was killed there," recalls Brigadier Ali without regret.

"So too was Najim Mizhir,

who

who was

the only Baath leader in the city

came from Najaf and was quite Uked, diough he shot a demonstrator." Other Baath Party members fled for their lives through the city's immense cemeteries, filled with the graves of devout Shia from around the world. By early morning on March 4, the rebels ruled actually

Najaf; within a day, they also held Kerbala, Kufa,

and the entire mid-

dle Euphrates area.

As Saddam's rule collapsed across southern

by a fresh

crisis at his rear.

Kurds had

also risen.

News

Iraq,

he was

arrived from the north that the

Unlike the spontaneous and leaderless fury of intifada,

assailed

tlie

southern

the Kurdish revolt was planned. While publicly refusing to

take advantage of Saddam's confrontation with the international coalition, the

Kurdish leaders had begun planting the seeds of an insurrec-

tion well before the

end of the

boyish-faced tribal chief who (the

KDP)

war.

Massoud

Barzani, the small and

headed the Kurdistan Democratic Party

led by his father years before, had forged an alliance with

the other principal commander, Jalal Talabani, the barrel-chested and garrulous leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (the PUK). controlled guerrilla forces,

turbanned Peshmerga whose

They

fathers

and

grandfathers had fought mountain campaigns for half a century

SADDAM

AT THE

against regimes in Baghdad. Before

ABYSS

and during the war, agents

patched by Barzani and Talabani had secretly Kurdish mihtia force recniited by Saddam,

moment when them

for

their

to strike.

infiltrated the Jash, a

in preparation for the

enemy might be weakened enough by

As

in the

dis-

the

country of the Shia, George Bush's

allies

call to

the Iraqi people had resonated with the Kurds, and they had tentatively

scheduled the

The

explosion

surprise.

tried to

start

of their revolt for the middle of March.

came sooner than

On March

5, in

that,

catching the leadership by

the small mountain town of Rania, police

round up some of the army deserters who had arrived home

from the debacle

The

in Kuwait.

local Jash, already

suborned by

agents of the underground resistance, reacted by seizing control of the

town. Within hours the revolt had spread across the sharp crags and winding, narrow canyons of the Kurdish mountains to Sulaimaniya, the provincial capital close to the Iranian border. Here, after two days

of hard fighting, the rebels captured the stone fortress that served as the long-dreaded Central Security Headquarters, potent symbol and

instrument of the regime. Behind the imposing front entrance, decorated with a giant all-seeing metal eye, they found a medieval warren

of torture chambers, equipped with metal hooks, piano wire, and other devices, and smeared with blood. In

some rooms, the insurgents

discovered freshly strangled women and children. In one, a human ear

some of the prisoners had been sealed in underground cells for more than a decade. The outraged crowd fell on the four hundred Baath Party members, intelligence officers, and secret police agents who had holed up in the security headquarters when the revolt began, and massacred them all. The careful plans of the leadership were swept away as the north-

was nailed to the

em

intifada

the plains.

wall.

As

in Basra,

swept across the

cities

Two weeks after the

first

of the mountains and

outbreak of rebellion in Rania, the

Kurdish Peshmerga guerrillas captured the only a few hours' drive from Baghdad. all

down onto

vital oil

center of Kirkuk,

"One second of this day is worth Massoud Barzani. Every-

the wealth in the world," cried an exultant

where people celebrated the man they regarded

as their ultimate

inspiration with the honorific tide "Haji." "Haji Bush," they cried to

the few Western correspondents

Kurdistan at the end of March.

who made

their

way

into liberated

OUT OF THE ASHES

2D

Saddam had now lost control of fourteen of Iraq's eighteen provinces. Baghdad itself remained quiet, but government officials were already showing a readiness to desert the sinking ship. Rumors spread that Saddam had fled the country. In Washington and London, alhed

relaxed in the comforting assumption that no

officials

leader could survive such disasters.

The

had taken the

uprisings

They were wrong.

Saddam

rest of the world, as well as

Hussein, completely by surprise. Years before, during the IranIraq war, his exiled opponents had miscalculated the strength of the Iraqi patriotism that

he was able to

enlist

on

his side after Iranian

forces entered Iraq in 1982. In the crisis after the invasion of

Kuwait, exiles

made

the opposite mistake, underestimating popular

anger against Saddam Hussein.

When

rebellion swept through

southern Iraq, the opposition had no organization in the ble of directing events. In the sixty-six miles

from Baghdad, a rebel

tanks under his to

Baghdad

is

town of

officer

command and leading them

capa-

proposed taking the to the capital.

six

"The way

open," he cried, but his fellow deserters preferred to

concentrate on lynching local Baath at the

anarchy. "At

we were

first

teacher, about these

first

officials.

In Najaf and else-

overthrow of the regime was followed by

where, euphoria

lights

cities

Hillah, for example, only

a

little

crazy," recalls

Hameed,

a school-

"We believed even the traffic we wrecked them." Three

days in Najaf.

represented Saddam Hussein, so

days after the

mob

drove out Saddam s forces, there were

still

dead

bodies lying in the streets.

There was only one man tual nature.

The

in the city with authority, albeit of a spiri-

ninety-one-year-old

Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qassim

al-Khoie was the most universally respected cleric in

He was

the grand Marja, the Shia equivalent of pope.

western Iran,

like

many

Khomeini himself had and taught

of Shia Iraq.

Bom in

north-

other clerics from outside Iraq (Ayatollah

lived there for sixteen years)

in Najaf. Unlike

at the

he had long

lived

Khomeini, al-Khoie was opposed to the

Shia clergy taking power themselves.

gathered around him

all

To the students and

Green Mosque

disciples

in the great shrine

he had

always preached that involvement in politics corrupted religion.

SADDAM

AT THE ABYSS

On March 6, the frail but venerated grand ayatollah issued afatwa, a religious decree, telling the people: "You are obligated to protect

people s property, and honor, likewise, are the property of all."

all

public institutions, for they

He urged the burial of bodies, though without

success.

The mood

Najaf was euphoric but confused. "Nobody

in

what was going on, but

tliey

knew that

the city was in our hands," says

Sayid Majid al-Khoie, the second son of the grand ayatollah. after the rebels took the city

and wrote said

in his diary

he

knew

visited the shrine of

what the people were

one man, "the Western armies are

in

The

Imam

saying. "Iraq

is

night

Hussein

finished,"

Basra and Samawa" (on the

Euphrates). Others were saying, "Kerbala and Najaf are in our hands.

Let us go on to Baghdad." People eagerly repeated the rumor that

Saddam had left Iraq. That same day, army officers, encouraged by the a committee, but they could not

who had

led the

first

ayatollah,

formed

impose discipHne on the young

men

now ruled the

They

demonstrations and

streets.

could not even take advantage of events that seemed to play into their hands.

The commander of the battalion spearheading the government

counterattack on Kerbala shot his chief security officer in the head and

changed

"But the committee could not keep his unit together,"

sides.

laments one of

its

members. "We had

their dishdashes [civilian robes]

to tell the

men

to

change into

and go home."

In towns along the Euphrates close to the Iranian border, some-

one did

lay claim to leadership.

Mohammed

scion of a revered Shia religious family, side in the

war of the 1980s. Now, from

der from Basra, he

commanded

the

had a

Baqir al-Hakim, the rallied to the Iranian

town

just across the bor-

Supreme Council

for the

Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and soon, on walls in Basra and in towns, like

Amara, close

to the border, posters of

al-Hakim and

the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini himself began to appear.

Announcements in al-Hakim s name claimed full authority over the rebellion: "No action outside this context is allowed; all parties working from Iranian

no party

is

territories

should also obey al-Haldm s orders;

allowed to recruit volunteers; no ideas except the rightful

Islamic ones should be disseminated."

Nothing was more

likely to isolate the rebels.

The prospect of an

OUT DFTHE ASHES

22

Islamic revolution frightened large

numbers of

Muslims, Kurds, Christians, secular

Iraqis,

the Baath Party.

Nor were be

identified with Iran

Iraqi opposition leaders

were quick

it

its allies

for

tlie

his

Iraqi secular opposition.

he had planted

own Mukhabarat Saad

"The Badr Brigade

They swear by the Koran

evi-

[secret Jabr, a [a

Iranian military unit recruited from exiled Iraqis] never came.

talked to the Iranians.

be

Saddam Hussein

police] to the south with pictures of Khomeinei," insists

veteran of

likely to

and militant Islam that some

to believe that

dence of Iranian involvement. "He sent

such as Sunni

and anyone associated with

the United States and

reassured by such slogans. So convenient was for the uprising to

Iraqis,

pro-

We

that they didn't send

the pictures."

This denial

is

echoed by an Islamic

Iraqi exile in Iran

itself,

who

exclaims bitterly at the behavior of the Iranians in 1991. "They

They only let a few people cross the border to help, and they would not let them bring arms. They certainly did not put up posters they were terrified of the American reaction." Whether or not Saddam put up fake posters, encouraged the uprising and then betrayed

it.

—

he certainly made a crafty

effort to publicize the pro-Iranian

element

by releasing eleven members of the al-Hakim family, known for their alliance to the Tehran regime, in the middle of the crisis. They had been imprisoned in secret for a decade and the outside world had believed them long dead. Wiser heads among the insurgents in the soutli knew that everyin the uprising

well

thing

depended on the Americans.

commander

in chief.

A

fatal

miscalculation by the U.S.

General Nornian Schwarzkopf, had allowed the

bulk of Saddam s most loyal and proficient military units, the Republi-

can Guards, to escape an

George Bush called

allied

encirclement twenty- four hours before

his cease-fire.

Unlike the bulk of the Iraqi army,

the Republican Guards were not conscript cannon fodder. Schwarz-

kopfs failure to intercept the guards was to have profound conse-

quences for Iraq. CarefuUy recruited, well paid, and lavishly equipped,

most of them had stayed together while the

rest

of the army in the

south disintegrated. They would be a fonnidable force against the enthusiastic but chaotic insurgency that

had seized control of southern

Iraq.

"The biggest reason

for the intifada

is

that they [the rebels] thought

SADDAM

AT THE ABYSS

23

the Americans would support them," says Sayid Majid. "They

they couldn't beat

Saddam on

control of die cities

and

their

that the

knew

own. They thought they could get

Americans would stop the army from

intervening."

On March

9,

Hussein Kamel, Saddams cousin and son-in-law,

began the counterattack on Kerbala, the other great sixty miles

He

from Najaf.

allied offensive

rebel officers

went there

to

grip

almost

on the columns of fire.

American

"We had

city,

intact.

Brigadier Ali and other

to help the resistance, but as the Republican

around the holy city and terrified civilians fled

nearby villages, he realized diat

the roads out of the

Iraqi

it

was the beginning of the end.

On

army helicopter crews poured kerosene

fleeing refugees

aircraft circled

and then

set

it

alight with tracer

high overhead.

the message that the Americans would support us,"

lamented the brigadier

as

he relived

his

escape back to Najaf from

Kerbala in a quiet North London office seven years with

of Shia Islam,

used Republican Guard units that had

escaped the

Guard tightened its

city

my own

later.

"But

I

saw

eyes the American planes flying over the helicopters.

We were expecting them to help; now we could see them witnessing our demise between Najaf and Kerbala. They were taking pictures

and they knew exactly what was happening." Back

in Najaf,

and the other

which

itself

was about to come under

officers consulted

attack, Ali

with Ayatollah al-Khoie. The vener-

able Shiite religious leader endorsed the notion that they should go

south and contact the us,

allies.

what were they going

to

"Find out what were their ideas about

do?"

He

agreed that Sayid Majid should

go with them.

As

Ali

and the

little

group drove through the towns and

anarchic southern Iraq, their car was besieged by crowds

villages

of

who had

heard that a son of al-Khoie had come among them. People clamored for arms.

The Americans, they said, had stopped the

rebels in the river

town of Nassariyah taking desperately needed guns and ammunition from the army barracks. In other places, U.S. army units were blowing

up captured weapons stores or taking them away. Above all, the rebels wanted communications equipment. Although they had captured almost aU of southern Iraq, the successful rebels in individual

were barely in touch with each

other.

cities

UT OF THE ASHES Outside Nassariyah, they met their

first

Americans. They were

sol-

diers

manning M-1 Abrams tanks and Bradley armored personnel car-

riers,

part of the

huge force

that

had swept around Kuwait and deep

into Iraq in the lightning allied offensive at the Iraqis explained to the

they were there.

It

end of February. The

American commander who they were and why

was not a warm reception. The U.S.

officer

away for ten minutes and then returned with the curious claim was out of touch with cer like Ah, this

his headquarters.

seemed highly

went

that

he

To a professional military offiThe American curtly sug-

unHkely.

gested that they try and find the French forces, eighty miles to the west. Bitterly disappointed at this disinterest, the Iraqis

the French.

went in search of

When they eventually found them on March 11, their luck

appeared to change. The Lieutenant colonel in charge questioned

them

in detail

through an Algerian interpreter and then said he would

command. He seemed well aware of the significance of the al-Khoie name. Four hours later, he came to report that General Schwarzkopf himself would meet them at Safwan in two get in touch with the allied

Safwan was two hundred miles away, too dangerous for a drive

days.

across country strewn with Iraqi

government units. Could they not use

one of the helicopters they could see constantly taking base? asked the

little

delegation. At

first

off

the French told

from the

them

that a

helicopter would be available. For three nights they waited with grow-

ing frustration at Samawa, continually being told that the meeting with

Schwarzkopf would be delayed. Majid

recalls that in conversation the

French told them: "The Americans are worried about the

They asked who brought Khomeini's that

I

passed through. father.

pictures into Iraq.

had seen no pictures of Khomeini I

said that people

Grand Ayatollah

al-Khoie, for

in

any of the

I

Iranians.

explained

cities I

were mistaking pictures of

had

my

Khomeini because both were old

men with white beards and turbans." Finally the answer

came from the Americans. "We were told they

had canceled the meeting helicopter." Majid

in

knew then

Safwan and that they would not send a that the revolt

was doomed.

Saddam knew it already. Twelve miles or so north of Baghdad, a compound at al-Rashedia houses the headquarters of the signals intelligence agency that monitored all electronic commu-

heavily guarded

SADDAM on

nications, including calls first

week of the intifada,

ABYSS

AT THE

satellite

25

phones. Sometime during the

military intelligence chief Wafiq al-Samarrai

was handed a transcript of two radio conversations that

had

posts.

just

in

southern Iraq

been intercepted by one of the al-Rashedia

listening

Following the procedure for especially urgent intelligence, a

copy had already been rushed directly to Saddam.

The intercepted conversations were between two Islamic rebels somewhere near Nassariyah. As recalled by al-Samarrai, they went as follows:

"We went

to ask the

Americans for their support," reported

one of tlie speakers. "They told

us,

'We are not going

to support

because you are from the al-Sayed group [that would be

you

Mohammed

al-Hakim].'"

"Ask them again, go back and ask once more."

The

reply soon came. "They say,

'We are not going

you because you are Shia and are collaborating with

The American

to support

Iran.'

had condemned

terror over Iranian intervention

the uprising. If the Iraqi leader had indeed organized the distribution of

Khomeini s

ceeded

brilhantly. In

he might be saved

portrait in the insurgent towns, his ruse

any event,

after

it

was a turning

point.

had suc-

Saddam knew

all.

message," says al-Samarrai, "the position of the

"After this

regime immediately became more confident.

Now

[Saddam] began

to attack the intifada."

The

first city

to

fall

was Basra,

control. In the flatlands of the five

hundred

miles,

mere week outside Saddam s plain,

which stretches

from the Kurdish mountains to the Gulf, the

mechanized forces of the round the

after a

Mesopotamian

Iraqi

rebels. Iraqi tanks

army could always outflank and

from the

Fifty-first

Mechanized

sur-

Division,

one of the few units apart from the Republican Guard that escaped mutiny after the Kuwait debacle, quickly captured die main road overlooking the sprawling working-class slums of North Basra.

The low

brick houses provided

gun bul-

lets.

The

station,

little

protection against heavy machine

tanks fired shells into centers of resistance Like the local

which burned

to the ground. "I

than one thousand dead," said

Dr

would say there were more

al-Rawi

six

weeks

hundred death certificates. You could see dogs eating bodies in the streets." eral Hospital issued six

fire

later.

It

"Basra Gen-

was a bad time.

OUT OF THE ASHES On the

mid-Euphrates

Guard tanks

lican

plain, the fighting

led by Hussein

east of Kerbcila, but they circled

south.

or

was even

Kamel were

behind the

city,

first

Repub-

fiercer.

held

cutting

it

at

al-Aoun,

off from the

To deny the rebels cover for ambushes, the army chopped down

bumgd palm

those fighting inside the

tance went on until atically

blew up

By March

groves beside the roads. city,

March

12, says

one of

"Kerbala was finished, although

sixteentli." Artillery

resis-

and tank guns system-

shops and small workshops between die shrines of

tlie

al-Abbas and al-Hussein, which stand four hundred yards apart. rocket-propelled grenade hit the blue-and-yellow

of the outer

tiles

One

porch of the shrine of al-Abbas, the warrior-martyr of Shia Islam.

memorial of the uprising carefully preserved by the rest

room

from the

for pilgrims in the al-Abbas shrine,

ceiling.

to bloodstains

Here, government

on the

floor,

Iraqi troops

where

officials later

A

a noose

was a

hung

explained, pointing

the rebels hanged or hacked to death Baath

Party members.

In every city they captured, the soldiers immediately posted pictures of

mortar

Saddam Hussein. At the

fire

shrine of

had chipped the stones

in

its

Imam Ali in

Najaf,

where

courtyard, soldiers placed a

strangely inappropriate picture of the Iraqi leader on a chair beside

the rubble.

He

is

portrayed dressed in tweeds, walking up an alpine

slope, a scene reminiscent of

leans

down

to pick a

In recaptured

The Sound of Music.

mountain

He

smiles as he

flower.

southern Iraq, government forces

cities across

exacted immediate revenge. Grand Ayatollah al-Khoie and his son

Mohammed

Taqi were taken to Baghdad where, after a night spent

in the military intelUgence headquarters, they

were summoned

two-hour meeting with an angry Saddam Hussein. As

by Mohammed, who

sat silent

dam man

had wanted

said: "I didn't

replied: "No,

let his

do the

father

later recalled talking, Sad-

think you would do something like this."

replied that he

everything.

and

you wanted

to

to control the violence.

overthrow me.

Now

in

was sent back

to a heavily

lost

to do."

Baghdad, some 102 of his

students and followers disappeared, never to be seen again. self

The old Saddam

you have

You did everything the Americans wanted you

While Grand Ayatoflah al-Khoie was

to a

guarded house

in

remained, lying on a divan, under effective house

He him-

Kufa where he

arrest.

Presented

SADDAM by the government

to foreign visitors,

"What happened

ously: is

against God."

is

happening.

I

Punishment

He

AT THE ABYSS

in

he would only say ambigu-

Najaf and other

told us,

cities is

"Nobody visits me,

have trouble with

27

so

I

not allowed and

know what

don't

my breathing." form of

for involvement in the uprising often took the

a bullet in the back of the head. But as striking as the atrocities was the casual violence witli which Baath Party leaders disposed of suspected

enemies.

The

party always has had a cult of toughness and political

machismo, which makes

on

film to

In

it

sometimes record

encourage supporters and frighten

March 1991, the party took

just

more

its

its

violent actions

enemies.

such a film of Ali Hassan

Majid, newly appointed interior minister, cousin of

known Kurds

rebels in the

between the

showed him and other party leaders hunting down and marshy lands around the town of Rumaytha,

flat

cities

of Najaf and Nassariyah in the

who was

In the film, al-Majid, as httle

mercy

and is

on

his

come back until you

if you

also briefly

to the Shia as

Iraqi helicopter pilot

"Don't

Saddam and

as "Ali Chemical" in Kurdistan for his use of gas against the in 1988. It

shows

way

his reputation

He

lacks

He

teUs an

to attack rebels holding a bridge:

Mohammed Hamza

during the uprising.

soutli.

governor of Kuwait,

he did to the Kurds.

are able to

haven't burnt them, don't

joined by

prime minister,

tell

come

me you have burnt them; back." At one

al-Zubeidi,

who

enhanced because of

and

moment he

later

his

became

toughness

slaps prisoners as they lie

on the

The

ground, saying: "Let's execute one so the others will confess." prisoners,

all

in civilian clothes, look frightened

and resigned. They

are silent, except to say softly: "Please don't do this." There crackle of machine-gun fire in the background. Al-Majid,

a

al-

who

is

the

looks

Saddam Hussein, chain-smokes as he interrogates prisOf one man he says: "Don't execute this one. He will be useus." The soldiers, from an elite unit, shout "Pimp" and "Son of

little like

oners. ful to

a whore" at another prisoner.

By March

16,

Saddam

in a broadcast speech.

felt

confident enough to address his people

He explained that he had said nothing immedi-

ately after the war, preferring to wait "until

tempers had cooled.

addition, recent painful events in the country

ing to you."

He blamed

have kept

... In

me from

talk-

the southern uprising on Iranian agents

aUT DFTHE ASHES

ZB "herds of rancorous country"

traitors, infiltrated

—while reminding

movement

his

Kurdish listeners that "every Kurdish

linked to the foreigner

and

tion to our Kurdish people,"

from inside and outside the

.

.

.

brought only

loss

and destruc-

would

that neighboring countries

own

never permit independence for Iraqi Kurds out of fear of their

Kurdish populations, a valid point.

He

obstacle to Iraq turning into another

portrayed himself as the one

Lebanon and endangering the

ruling Sunni minority.

In any case, the Kurds had far outrun what they could defend.

Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani had some merga" (Kurdish

guerrillas)

when

fifteen

thousand "Pesh-

they started their offensive. They

were joined by over a hundred thousand Jash militia belonging to tribes allied to Saddam, as well as the many Kurds who had deserted from the Iraqi army. But the Jash turned against Saddam primarily because they thought he was going to

dam

lose.

A few weeks later,

as Sad-

redirected toward the north the forces that had crushed the

south, this looked less certain.

The

allies

were withdrawing, Saddam

retained his grip on Baghdad, and he had retaken Basra and Kerbala.

The capture of Kirkuk, where the first in 1927,

Iraqi oil field

helped galvanize the Sunni core of the regime. They were

not prepared to cede control of this vital

months

began production

later,

Izzat

oil

region to the Kurds.

A few

Ibrahim al-Dhouri, the Iraqi vice president,

when you Kurds took Kirkuk was it possible to mobilize against you." The Kurds were faced with an insoluble mifitary problem: Two of the largest cities they had admitted to a Kurdish delegation that "only

captured, Kirkuk and Arbil,

They are

on the plain below the mountains.

sit

armed with light weapons to fight Sulaimaniya and Dohuk, the other Kurdish

indefensible by guerrillas

tanks backed by

artillery.

provincial capitals, are almost equally vulnerable. But these cities are

home

to

most of the 3 million Kurds. The Peshmerga, even

rein-

forced by the Jash, could not retreat into the mountains and deep gorges of Kurdistan and abandon their families in the

cities.

Instead,

they had to flee together. Massoud Barzani recalled later that just before the Iraqi counterattack on

March 29 he reviewed thousands of

Kurdish volunteers near Rawanduz, in the heart of Kurdistan. days

later, all

pass near

his

had disappeared.

He was

A

reduced to defending a

headquarters at Salahudin with his

few vital

own bodyguard. For

SADDAM years, a Iraqi

AT

THEABYSS

29

burned-out Iraqi tank marked the spot where they stopped an

armored column. threw flour on the retreating Kurds, giving the

Iraqi helicopters

The

impression that they were using chemical weapons.

object was to

induce panic on a population with bitter memories of Saddam's lavish use of chemicals on them only three years before;

A million

well.

By

Kurds

fled into Iran

the end of March,

south. Samarra, the last

March city

29.

town under the control of the

held by the Kurds in the north, on April

lost

too

all

and Turkey.

The Republican Guards entered 2.

all

of the

rebels, fell

Sulaimaniya, the

Saddam had

He was

on

last

survived

so short of

were old British Ammunition almost ran out. "We

that the tanks that finally retook Kerbala

Chieftains captured from Iran.

had

succeeded

Saddam Hussein had retaken

the great rebeflions, though only by a whisker.

equipment

it

two hundred and

five

miUion bullets

in Kuwait.

When we

asked the Jordanians for a few milfion, they refused," recalls Wafiq al-Samarrai.

"By the

week of the

last

intifada, the

two hundred and seventy thousand Kalashnikov

enough It

for

two days'

fighting.

had been a narrow escape, but now

mounted the immediate something of the

army was down to That was

bullets."

mood

that

threats of the allies

Saddam had

and the

sur-

uprisings,

of messianic self-confidence with which he

had invaded Kuwait eight months before returned. "Things are not so bad,"

he said

to a confidant after the tide

had turned. "In the

past,

our enemies have taken advantage of our mistakes. In future, will sit

Saddam seemed like

to believe that

the status quo of August

1,

he could now return to something

1990, the day before the invasion of

Kuwait. But his world had changed. principally Great Britain,

dam,

we

back and take advantage of the mistakes made by them."

The United

were determined

at

States

and

its allies,

the very least that Sad-

their erstwhile aUy, should never again

be

in a position to

threaten their interests in the Middle East. Prior to August 1990, he

had been

left to

deal as he wished witii his

own people even

billion-dollar oil sales financed his grandiose ambitions.

March

1991, even with the rebellions suppressed, his

shriveled.

The economic

exports as well as

afl

as multi-

At the end of

domain had

sanctions forbidding the country's vital

other normal

commerce with

Iraq

oil

had been

OUT OF THE ASHES

3a

imposed by the United Nations Security Council on August

6,

1990.

Their original purpose had been to force Iraq out of Kuwait. But, even

now that Kuwait had been liberated by the allied armies, were

still

in place. If they

were not

lifted,

standard of living of ordinary Iraqis

Nations headquarters in

New

longer be a fully independent

under these circumstances, mistakes.

his

the sanctions

Saddams income

—^would be decided

—and the at

United

York and Washington. Iraq would no state.

For Saddam Hussein

enemies would have

to

to survive

make

a lot of

TWO

"We Have Saddam Hussein

Three

months

to the

Still

Here"

day after the aUied guns

fell silent in

Kuwait,

a highly classified letter landed on the desk of Frank Anderson, a

gray-haired senior

Anderson looked

official at

at

it

CIA

headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

glumly and then scribbled

"I don't like this" in

the margin.

The

was a formal

letter

"finding," signed

by President Bush,

CIA to mount a covert operation removal of Saddam Hussein from

authorizing the ditions for the

as chief of the

Near

Operations, was the

to "create the con-

power." Anderson,

East division of the agency's Directorate of

man who would have

to carry

it

out.

He was

being asked to succeed where seven hundred thousand allied diers

had

failed

and he did not think

it

could be done.

"We

sol-

didn't

have a single mechanism or combination of mechanisms with which I

could create a plan to get rid of Saddam

CIA

officials

—

eign irritant

at that time,"

he said

faced with peremptory orders to deal with

as in

"Get

rid of

Khomeini"

—

like to

later.

some

for-

quote an aphorism

coined by a former director, Richard Helms: "Covert action

is

fre-

— OUT DF THE ASHES

32 quendy

a substitute for a policy."

Anderson was paying the price

for

the war planners' failure to think about the future of Iraq after an

aUied victory in Kuwait.

George Bush himself had been the first to express the notion that the war might have been a triumph without a victory. "To be very honest with you, that

many

I

haven't yet

of the American people feel," he said the day after his

armies ceased

fire. "I

think

we have Saddam Hussein Bush had ordered the Kuwait

wonderfully euphoric feeling

felt this

it's

still

that

I

want

an end.

to see

And now

here."

because his armies had overrun

cease-fire

headHne-friendly 100 hours with minimal casualties.

It

appeared to have been the military equivalent of a perfect game

in

in a

baseball and the

American generals were not anxious

mar the

to

record with any further fighting. In any event, the White House had

been assured

that the Republican Guard, Saddam's

accomplished troops, were trapped without the

one of the principal wartime objectives of the U.S. In

fact,

even before Bush called a

halt,

most

loyal

and

possibility of escape

mifitary

command.

the bulk of the Republican

Guard had already eluded the planned allied encirclement with relamoving out of the intended area of entrapment on February

tive ease,

27.

By March

1,

they were

sixty miles

north of Basra, therefore a delay

of twenty-four hours in announcing the cease-fire would have difference.

It

made no

was only one of many miscalculations by the U.S. war

planners. Other objectives wrongly thought to have

been achieved

included the severing of Saddam's communication links with his troops and the destruction of Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical

warfare programs. "Saddam Hussein

is

out of the nuclear business,"

Defense Secretary Richard Cheney had confidently asserted closed hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee

to a after

weeks of bombing. Like many other assumptions about the consequences of the Iraq campaign, embarrassingly Years

later.

this

boast was soon to be revealed as

false.

Bush would

stiU

be haunted by the recurring question:

Why had he not "gone all the way to Baghdad" and settled the Saddam problem when he had had the chance? Each time he would patiently explain that the United Nations resolutions under which he

had

launched the war authorized only the liberation of Kuwait and he

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE" could not legally have gone further. Iraqi Pfesistance would have ened.

And

anyway,

if

That was not quite the whole Gulf had forcefully pointed out allies

displaced

eventually have to

British diplomats

in a secret

American

among

especially Saudi Arabia.

as

to

all

from the

meeting before the war,

sorts of

if

problems for Anglo-

the semifeudal monarchies of the region,

No one wanted

might prove catching.

keep the Middle East Militarily,

As

Saddam and occupied Baghdad, they would hold elections for a new government before

would have led

Iraq. It

months afterward.

for

story.

pulling out. This alhes

stiff-

the Americans had gotten to Baghdad, they

would have had to occupy the place

the

33

it

It

encourage democracy

in

had been a conservative war

to

to

was, not to introduce change.

an advance on Baghdad might not have been

difficult.

General Steven Arnold, the U.S. Army's chief operations officer

in

Saudi Arabia, actually drew up a secret plan after the cease-fire entitled

"The Road

to

Baghdad," which he calculated could easily be car-

ried out with a fraction of the forces available. Arnold's officer, horrified at

commanding

such an implicit admission that the victory was

less

than complete, put the plan under lock and key. Unfortunately, neither

House had as yet any other plan for dealing with Iraq once the issue of Kuwait had been settled. According to Chas. Freeman, wartime ambassador to Saudi Arabia, this lack of forethought was deliberate. "The White House was terrified of leaks about any U.S. plans that might unhinge the huge and unwieldy coalition that George Bush had put together to support the war," he recalled later. "So officials were discouraged from writing, talking, or even thinking about what to do next." Faced with such awkward considerations, the conduct of die war had been left largely to the military, whose vision had its limitations. Before the bombing started, an air force general paid a call on Ambasthe military nor the White

sador James Aldus, a distinguished former diplomat with a wealth of

experience in Iraq.

The general explained

that

he wished to consult

the ambassador on the selection of suitable

suggested that die Pentagon might find

knowledge of years.

no

Iraqi politics

"Oh, no,

it

bombing targets. AJdns more useful to draw on his

and of Saddam,

whom

he had known

for

Mr Ambassador," said his visitor "You see, this war has

political overtones."

OUT OF THE ASHES

34 During the war

the U.S. high

itself,

forward approach to Iraqi

politics: Kill

sen weapons were laser-guided posts, meticulously charted

has

officially

day

in

main

The cho-

Saddam s command

at

targeters. Since the

euphemisms about

centers. Nevertheless, the killing

August 1990 when

priority in the first

fired a

bombs aimed

by the

a straight-

United States

foresworn assassination as an instrument of foreign policy,

the scheme was cloaked in

and control"

command pursued

the president of Iraq.

month

air force

targeting

"command

was scheduled from the

planners wrote "Saddam" as the

bombing plan. The

air force

chief of staff was

later for publicly admitting that the Iraqi leader

was "the

focus of our efforts."

Brent Scowcroft, Bush's National Security Adviser and trusted

conceded afterward

confidant, yes,

we

targeted

all

that

"We

do

don't

assassinations, but

Saddam might have been." kill him if you possibly could?" he

the places where

"So you dehberately set out to

was asked. 'Tes, that's fair enough," replied the

In

fact,

man who had approved the hit.

the Iraqi leadership, anticipating the Americans' intentions,

knew full well that inside a bunker.

the most dangerous place to be during the war was

Most stayed

in

suburban houses

weren't huddled in a bunker," says a senior Iraqi

were well aware that there

that they

were weapons

were well known

in

Baghdad. "They

officer,

to the allies.

"because

we

We also knew

that could destroy them."

The hunt petered out after one of the places targeters thought their quarry might be turned out to be die Amariya

and over four hundred people, mostly

civilian

women and

bomb

shelter

were

children,

The generals' fixation on targets was unfortunate because, knew a great deal about Iraq buildings, communications systems, power plants, bunkers it knew very little about Iraqis. For many years there was no U.S. embassy in Baghdad and, in

incinerated.

while U.S. intelligence

—

any case, the country and world by an sein

efficient

its

—

people were screened from the outside

and ruthless regime. Even when Saddam Hus-

needed the help of U.S.

the Americans in the dark as

intelligence,

he had done

his best to

keep

much as possible about events in his ruth-

lessly efficient police state.

In the 1980s, the two countries had been de facto diplomatic relations were restored in 1984

—

in the

allies

war with

—

full

Iran,

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE" and the CIA sent a tos

liaison

team

35

to BaghdS'd to deliver satellite

and other useful intelhgence.

It

was a handsome

dam, the seasoned conspirator, was highly

gift,

pho-

but Sad-

sensitive to the perils of

such a relationship.

From 1986 Istikbarat,

head of the

on. General al-Samarrai, then deputy

mihtary intelligence, was one of only three officers per-

mitted by the dictator to meet with the CIA. Just to be on the safe side,

Saddam put

by the

al-Samarrai himself under intensive surveillance

Amn al-Khass,

the special security organization that reported

directly to the presidential palace.

"The CIA used

to

send us a

lot

Samarrai remembers. In addition, service

would routinely request used to

cans. "I sector.'

say, for

Saddam would

of information about Iran,"

when

from the Ameri-

specific intelligence

example, 'Give us information on the Basra

say:

'Don't

tell

them

like that, ask

them

us information from the nordi of Iraq to the south, because

them

it's

only Basra, they would

sometimes get

al-

preparing for an attack, his

memos on his

tell

the Iranians.'

"

if

to give

we

tell

al-Samarrai would

U.S. contacts back from his master with

cautionary notes scribbled in the margins: "Be careful, Americans are conspirators."

(Saddam's suspicions were not without merit. In 1986, during the

infamous Iran-Contra episode, the United States gave the Iranians intelligence

on the

Iraqi order of battle. Coincidentally or not, Iraq

then suffered a stunning defeat in the Fao peninsula. Late in 1989, the war with Iran won, Saddam decided that the relationship

had outlived

usefulness,

its

tioned in Baghdad. Diplomats

and expelled the CIA

who remained

Kuwait were hardly better situated to contacts with ordinary Iraqis

were

officials sta-

until the invasion of

collect information, since

all

Even maids and

tightly restricted.

chauffeurs catering to the diplomats' domestic needs tended to be foreign workers, Egyptians or Palestinians. In any case, foreigners

were subject

to suspicious scrutiny

all

contacts with

by the Mukhabarat.

After the invasion of Kuwait, the various U.S. intelligence agencies speedily accumulated a vast quantity of information from surveillance satellites

A massive CIA program to interview the forwho had helped build the bunkers, radar sites, com-

and spy planes.

eign contractors

munications

links,

and other physical infrastructure

for

Saddam's war

aUTOFTHEASHES

36

machine produced further mountains of

telltale flecks

bomb

clear indication of an Iraqi .

The most

secret

Sometimes the

as

of former American hostages nuclear plant and found

reports.

when the CIA analyzed the clothes who had been held at the Tuwaitha

methods used were ingenious,

of highly enriched uranium, a

program.

component of the

collection effort

was the small

group of agents recruited and infiltrated into Iraq. Given the consequences of being caught, these were courageous

individuals.

nication was difficult; the radios with which they

not always work

efficiently,

even to take the

risk

were very

tlie

were provided did

spies

were reluctant

of switching the devices on. "One or two of them

useful," recalls

On the

gram.

and some among

Commu-

one former CIA

other hand, the high

official

involved in the pro-

command in Riyadh

gave the

final

order to attack the Amariya shelter only after a "reliable" agent reported that

it

was being used

Astonishingly,

fruitful

a mid-level State Department

sition leader to

nationalism sitivities

thereupon forbidden

allies.

all

recognition of Kurdish

so in deference to the sen-

Secretary of State George Shultz had

further contact by any official of the U.S. gov-

ernment witli any member of the contacts" rule

for example,

received a Kurdish oppo-

Any implicit

wasanatEema to either regime,

of these two

The "no

official

hear complaints about Saddams use of poison gas

ag ainst his ju bjects in Kurdistan.

still

Iraqi opposition.

applied during the war, which was why,

an offer of timely military intelligence from the Kurdish

underground ally,

source of intelligence was off

In 1988, the Iraqi and Turkish governments had complained

limits.

when

for military purposes.

one potentially

in

northern Iraq was

spumed by the Pentagon. Eventu-

a system was improvised by which reports collected by Kurds

were radioed

phone

to their office in Iran, thence to

to another office in Detroit,

Damascus, thence by

and then faxed

to Peter Galbraith,

the sympathetic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations mittee. "This

was not stupid

stuff,"

remembers

diem was about what happened to an allied pilot down. But they were picked up by a bored lieutenant from ligence who couldn't have been less interested."

naval intel-

On the day that the allied forces ceased fire, February 28, Kurdish leader

Jalal

Com-

"One of who had been shot

Galbraith.

1991, the

Talabani tried to enter the State Department,

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE"

37

intending to brief officials on the imminent uprising in noriJiem Iraq.

Thanks

and

to the bar

on

no

contacts,

official

dared speak with him, and he

never got beyond the department s lobby. The following

his party

day, Richard Haass, director for

Middle East

Affairs

on the National

phoned Galbraith to complain about the Senate staffers sponsorship of the unwelcome Kurds. Surely, protested Galbraith, the Kurds were allies in the fight against the Baghdad regime. Security Council

staff,

'Tou don't understand," fumed the powerful White House

"Our policy is

The word

to get rid of

"policy"

Saddam, not

was misused. In

lieu of intelligence

about the

White House was acting on the

political situation in Iraq, the

official.

his regime."

basis of

among these was a deeply ingrained belief that Saddam would inevitably be displaced by a military coup. A veteran of

assumptions. Principal

CIA

operations in Iraq explains

CIA, DIA, going to

NSA were in

fall.

it

this

way: "All the analysts in State,

agreement with the verdict that Saddam was

There wasn't a

single dissenting voice.

was, they had no hard data at

all.

was conditioned on a Western way of looking as

The only

trouble

Their whole way of thinking really at things:

A leader such

Saddam who had been defeated and humiliated would have to leave

office. Just that. Plus," sighs

analysts

"A

had ever

the former covert operator, "none of these

set foot inside Iraq.

collective mistake," agrees

official.

Not one."

one former very high-ranking CIA

"Everybody believed that he was going

to

fall.

Everybody

was wrong." Nothing

illustrates the lack

of understanding of the situation on

the ground in Iraq better than the notorious

call

by Bush that

helped incite the uprising. According to sources familiar with the

background of the speech, the

original intent

had been

message of encouragement to any potential coup plotters

send a

to in

Bagh-

dad. Accordingly, Richard Haass drafted a call for the Iraqi military

own hands" and

to "take matters into their

power.

The appeal was due

to

force

Saddam from

be delivered by the president

in the

course of a speech on February 15. Early on the morning of the appointed day, hint that he might

news pictures of peace by

firing

be prepared

to

Saddam gave

the

first

withdraw from Kuwait. Network

Iraqis enthusiastically celebrating the possibility of

guns in the

air

made

a considerable impression on the

OUT OF THE ASHES

3S White House.

It

seemed there was

a piibUc opinion in Iraq after

A few extra words were added to Bush's script. ican Association for the

Bush now referred

Advancement of Science

reflecting the Iraqi people

on

s

desire to see the

to appeal to "the Iraqi miUtary

into their

aside

.

.

.

own hands

and

—

to force

and the

sage got across, Bush repeated

As intended, the

news channels

it,

word

call for revolt

avidly

the dictator to step

make

for word, in a

sure the mes-

second address

in Massachusetts.

got wide play on the international

consumed by

The audience, however, Iraqi military and the Iraqi

Iraqis.

missed the nuanced references to "the people."

morning,

Baghdad"

war end. Then he moved

Saddam Hussein

Raytheon missile plant

in

Iraqi people to take matters

rejoin the family of nations." Just to

that day at the

later that

atmosphere

to the "celebratory

They took the American leaders words

at face value,

ing the reasonable conclusion that they were being called join the fight against

all.

Speaking to the Amer-

draw-

upon

to

Saddam.

The supreme irony is that Bush and his advisers, in trying to promote a coup, instead encouraged an uprising that may have prevented the very coup they so devoutly desired. An Iraqi source, privy to the highest levels of the military at that time, has assured us that there

was indeed a coup being planned by senior generals from

some time during the war and

after.

But the

plotters

were deterred

from taking action by the Shia uprising. As members of the ruling Sunni minority, they feared the consequences of Shia success and thought

it

more expedient,

for the time being, to rally

around Sad-

dam. What their attitude might have been had the United States signaled support for the rebellion

is

not recorded.

George Bush himself later sensed part of the wrote that

been led

"I

he

did have a strong feeUng that the Iraqi military, having

to such a crushing defeat

themselves of him.

We

by Saddam, would

were concerned

sidetrack the overthrow of rally

truth. In 1994,

rise

up and

that the uprisings

Saddam by causing the

rid

would

Iraqi military to

around him to prevent the breakup of the country. That may

have been what actually happened."

There is, however, another irony that Bush evidently fails to appreciate.

In that

the balance.

week of March 1991, Saddam's fate hung in Many ranking military commanders as well as other offifirst

crucial

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE" cials in

39

the regime were contemplating abandoning the sinking ship

and throwing

in their lot with the rebels.

risky gamble, since the

inevitably

But

this

was

still

a highly

consequences of picking the losing side would

be terminally unpleasant. For anyone making the choice,

the attitude of the Americans was crucial.

To

tip

the balance. Bush

did not have to launch his armies on the road to Baghdad; a hint of

support or even encouragement to the rebels would probably have

been enough.

Washington and the U.S. military command in

Instead,

Riyadh not only gave indications, such copters to cess,

fly,

that they

were

less

as allowing

Saddam's

heli-

than interested in the rebels' suc-

but also explicitly told rebel emissaries that there would be no

—

Saddam quickly discovered. In Baghdad and elsewhere, the waverers drew the appropriate conclusions. support

as

This adamant repudiation of the rebel cause was based on another iron-clad assumption

on die part of the Washington policy makers: a

deeply ingrained belief that

civil

disorder would inevitably sunder

Iraq. Since before the war, classified

memos had

national security bureaucracy, replete with

hurtled around the

ominous warnings of the

consequences that would follow an Iraqi breakup, up to and including, as

one Pentagon missive suggested, "the Iranian occupation of any

part of Iraqi territory

.

.

.

Iraqi disintegration

for Iranian domination of the

wiU improve prospects

Gulf and remove a

restraint

on

Syria."

Reports that portraits of Ayatollah Khomeini were being put up in erated areas did not help matters.

No one was

going to

assist

Lib-

what

appeared to be surrogates for the dreaded fundamentalist Iranians.

As a

result,

the U.S. forces in the large portion of Iraq occupied

during the ground offensive

move

at

the end of the war not only

made no

to assist the insurgents, they actually gave tacit assistance to

Saddam's forces by preventing rebels from taking desperately needed arms and ammunition in abandoned Iraqi stores. Much of these captured stocks were destroyed, but, paradoxically, the

took possession of an appreciable quantity and shipped

it

CIA

off to fun-

damentalists in Afghanistan, favored agency clients in the

civil

war

in that country.

Since the president had publicly encouraged the uprising on which

now turning their backs, the White House was embarrassed enough to draft their Saudi allies as an alibi. The Saudis, murmured

they were

— OUT OF THE ASHES

4D

background

officials in

briefings,

were adamantly opposed

to aiding

the Shia, since they were in such mortal terror of Iran. Bush himself

may even have

believed this explanation. "It was never our goal to

break up Iraq," he wrote

"Indeed,

later.

we

did not want this to hap-

pen, and most of our coalition partners (especially the Arabs)

felt

even

stronger on the issue."

This was not, in idea that the Saudi official

who

visited

the attitude of the Saudis at the time. "The

fact, tail

was wagging our dog

Riyadh

mid- March.

in

is

one

just bullshit," says

He had been

closely cross-

questioned by Prince Turki bin Feisel, head of Saudi intelligence,

about ways to aid the opposition (about whom the prince was woefully ignorant).

"The behavior of the

Iraqi Shia in the Iran-Iraq

war convinced the

Saudis that the Shia were not Iranian surrogates," says Ambassador

Freeman. "Washington was obsessed by that the Saudis.

I

came from. about

six

don't

After

all,

On March

26, 1991,

is

and attributed

it

to

for quite a while

not a flimsy construction."

Bush convened a meeting of his most senior

White House

to

make

a final decision on help for the

There was no public pressure

"yeUow ribbon mode,"

as

one

official

had now joined in tlie general euphoria. iron Club's

idea,

panic about the breakup of Iraq

all this

Mesopotamia has been there

thousand years. Iraq

advisers at the rebels.

know where

to

—the country was —and Bush himself

do so

in

remarked

A few days earlier, at the Grid-

chummy annual get-together of politicians and media,

the

"agony" of the president's wartime experience had been compared to that of Abraham Lincoln

by a fawning member of the

press.

At the White House meeting, a hard-and-fast decision to leave Iraq to

its

own

President

devices was approved by

Dan Quayle showed

Saddam Hussein drance.

No one

to

all.

Of those

present, only Vice

the slightest concern about allowing

go on slaughtering the insurgents without hin-

appears to have challenged the presumption that a

rebel victory would inevitably have led to Iran seizing a piece of Iraq.

Following the meeting, as Bush's spokesman announced that

"We

don't intend to involve ourselves in the internal conflict in Iraq," Brent

Scowcroft and Richard Haass boarded a plane for Riyadh to spread the

word

rebels

—a

in the field.

The

Saudis were

still

in a

mood

to help the

senior Kurdish representative was in Riyadh

when

the

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE" Americans landed. They needed to be told to get

in step

41

with policy.

In Washington, a "senior official" was briefing reporters on the

Bush believed "Saddam

fact that

will

crush the rebellions and, after

the dust settles, the Baath military establishment and other elites will

blame him

for not only the death

and destruction from the war

down

but the death and destruction from putting

the rebellion.

emerge then and install a new leadership." That was not quite the picture of White House pohcy the Saudis got from their

They

will

high-powered

Sayid Majid al-Khoie soon discovered.

visitors, as

Al-Khoie had been held under comfortable house arrest

at the

Saudi border ever since he had escaped from Iraq, the promise of

meeting with Schwarzkopf

his

still

ing, if

He was

unmet.

George Bush was asked, on the day after the

crucial

there when March 26 meet-

any rebel groups had asked the United States for help.

"Not that

I

know

of,"

the president blithely replied. "No,

believe that they have. If they have,

it

hasn't

come

to

I

don't

me."

After finally being allowed to travel to Riyadh, al-Khoie had his first

chance to meet with the Saudi intelhgence chief Prince Turld

bin Feisel on

March

30, three days after the

two emissaries had

arrived from Washington.

"Why

Al-Khoie recorded the two-hour meeting in his diary:

are

you so worried about the Shia?" he asked.

"We

can't

do anything

Americans don't want to remove Saddam. They

under

control. This

is

"The

to help you," repfied the prince.

better than

somebody we

say,

don't

'Saddam

know

is

about.

We are worried about Iran.' Twenty-four hours after al-Khoie heard that the Americans

wanted Saddam

to stay in power, Peter Galbraith

was fleeing

been touring the war-torn region and had gone

to

bed

late

before after telling a crowd of Kurdish notables that, as the

address them.

government

in a free Kurdistan,

the night

first

repre-

he was proud to

Now he was running from a vengeful Iraqi army on the

verge of retaking the

city.

An

angry red-haired Peshmerga stuck his

head through the car window. "Damn Bush," he

The 2

for his

Dohuk. The energetic Senate aide had

hfe from the Kurdish city of

sentative of the U.S.

now

million

Kurds who joined Galbraith

said.

in flight

were about

to

upset the White House's determined disengagement from Iraqi

aUT OF THE ASHES

42 affairs.

The

attracting

Shia in the south had fled in equal terror, but without

much

Kurds fared

attention or

better,

sympathy

The

in the outside world.

being easily accessible to

tlie

media army

that

speedily materialized on the Turkish border and telegenic besides.

"They look middle tures of doctors

mountain

class,"

murmured a Senate staffer watching TV pic-

and lawyers

sides. "I

in three-piece suits shivering

never realized they were

such as the columnist William

like us." Influential figures

champion of their cause since

Safire, a

the days of their betrayal by the

on the bleak

CIA in the

1970s, weighed in on their

behalf Galbraith, safely over the border, threw in his

own

bitter

and

well-informed denunciations of the whole postwar policy on Iraq.

With unseemly reluctance, the White House bent to public opinion and began to assist the Kurds. At first Bush sent food and medicine and then, on Aprfl

16,

he ordered U.S. troops

create a "safe haven" from It

Saddam s

into northern Iraq to

forces for returning refugees.

was a momentous turning point. Although Bush stressed that the

troop deployment was merely temporary, the president had now, how-

ever unwillingly, accepted a military role for the United States inside the borders of Iraq effort to resist.

itself.

Bending to force majeure, Saddam made no

Although the aUied troops were withdrawn within

three months, the Iraqi

army did not permanendy

reassert the gov-

ernment's control over Kurdistan. U.S. warplanes based just across the Turkish border,

vide Comfort"

were now assigned

at Incirhk,

to "Operation Pro-

—

protective air cover for the Kurds and a tangible

deterrent to any effort by

Saddam

to crush these rebellious subjects

once more.

Announcing the April decision

to dispatch troops into Kurdistan,

the president was defensive about his famous

now coming back

to haunt him.

"Do

I

call to

the Iraqi people,

think that the United States

should bear guilt because of suggesting that the Iraqi people take matters into their

own

hands, with the implication being given by

that the United States would be there to support

replied to

them

one aggressive questioner. "That was not

implied that." Displaying a certain to insist that the

some

militarily?"

true.

We

he

never

economy with the truth, he went on

wartime objectives had "never included the demise

and destruction of Saddam

personally."

In the argument that day over the gap between presidential

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE" rhetoric

and

realpolitik,

no one paid much attention

remark that not only would there be no normal until

"Saddam Hussein

is

the economic sanctions."

43

to Bush's casual

relations with Iraq

out of there," but that "we will continue

It

was the

single

most important statement

of the day.

The

UN resolutions authorizing die war in Iraq had served as a use-

ful justification in

not carrying on the war after the Iraqis were evicted

from Kuwait. But the economic sanctions on Iraq had been tied by the Security Council to specific ends: an unconditional withdrawal from

Kuwait, compensation for damage there, and the total elimination of

weapons of mass destruction and the

all

facilities for

Following the passage of the cease-fire resolution that the Gulf

War on

April 3, 1991, U.S. ambassador

stated explicitly that,

"Upon implementation of the

making them.

officially

Thomas

ended

Pickering

provisions dealing

with weapons of mass destruction and the compensation regime, the sanctions wiU

UN

the

be

lifted."

Now the president was offhandedly rewriting

Saddam was on

resolution.

notice that

did not matter

it

whether he observed the existing resolutions or not, he would never be allowed to export his

oil freely until

the day he died. In putting a once

wealthy country under permanent blockade. Bush was deploying a

weapon

far

more deadly than the TV-friendly smart bombs of the war. Saddam was not the direct target, a fact spelled out by

This time

deputy national security adviser Robert Gates when he gave the sanctions decision a

ited

more formal unveihng on May

7.

"Saddam

is

discred-

and cannot be redeemed. His leadership wiU never be accepted

by the world community. Therefore," declared Gates,

"Iraqis

wiU pay

the price while he remains in power. All possible sanctions will be

maintained until he

is

ered only when there

gone. is

a

.

.

.

Any easing of sanctions will be

consid-

new government."

Iraq was heading into the hundred-degree temperatures of sum-

mer.

The hospitals were beginning to

fill

up with typhoid cases and the

doctors were running out of drugs with which to treat them. In Basra,

heavUy bombed

in the

war and fought over again

in the intifada, chil-

dren splashed in pools of sewage because the sewage pumps were bro-

ken and, thanks

to the sanctions,

no spare

parts could

be imported. So

long as sanctions were in force, Iraq would remain in the third-world

misery to which

it

had suddenly been

thrust.

OUT OF THE ASHES

4-4

Sanctions had the merit, in U.S. eyes, of "containing" Saddam.

With an unrepaired economy, he would never be able

to cause the

kind of trouble across his borders that had necessitated the Gulf War.

As an additional bonus, keeping 3 million barrels of daily tion off the international markets prices, thus helping the Saudis

to

pay for the war "Saddam

event,

he

will

be reincarnated

Meanwhile, the price.

as

a floor

produc-

under world

and Kuwaitis, who were pumping hard remain an outcast," predicted Ambas-

will

sador Aldns, "unless and until

would keep

oil

oil

goes back up to $30 a barrel. In that

as

Mother Teresa."

Gates observed, the Iraqi people would be paying

To the outside world, the administration plan seemed clear: people would only rise and get rid of Saddam, then the

If the Iraqi

blockade would end.

It

was, therefore, confusing for the present

authors to be told at the time by a senior

CIA

official that

uprising was the "least likely" consequence of sanctions. In senior officials at the Pentagon,

White House,

State

a popular reality,

the

Department, and

CIA who crafted the policy had a slightly different end result in mind. It was not the people who were expected to take action, but members of the ruHng

"They

elite.

really believed that the sanctions policy

coup," says a former

who was much realize,

official

might encourage a

with the CIAs covert operations arm

involved in Iraqi matters at the time. "You have to

they understood very

little

about the way that Saddam

thought, and nothing about the 'fear factor' with those around him."

Up until now, the United States had tried to encourage a coup from the sidelines, as with Bush's wartime appeal and subsequent offliand

remarks about getting "Saddam Hussein out of there." clear plan as to

one

official

how the

parties at the Pentagon, State

had groped for answers. The Some suggested giving fuU backback at home under protective U.S. air

Department, and White House,

was

one had a

describes as a "painfully frequent" series of meetings

between the CIA and other interested

air

No

longed-for event might be achieved. In what

officials

thick with simplistic slogans.

ing to the Kurds,

now

safe

cover following Bush's reluctant intervention in northern Iraq, to

trig-

ger a "rolling coup" that would sweep progressively southward from their

mountain

eventually

fastness.

prompt some

Others argued that rigorous sanctions would public-spirited

member

of Saddam's family

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE" or bodyguard to do the deed variant

on

this

—the

45

so-called "silver bullet" solution.

A

notion propounded the prospects of a "palace coup" by

disgruntled Republican Guards or other security units.

No one was

foolish

enough

beUeve that any single idea pro-

to

now Frank Anderson was being

vided a guaranteed solution. So

tasked to try a combination of these vague schemes in the hope that

something would turn up. As the experienced covert operator understood, he did not have

The previous August,

many tools with which

do the

to

the president had signed another

fully

job.

CIA find-

ing on Iraq. Contrary to later reports, however, this was not a directive to

overthrow Saddam. "Our mission was to convince Saddam

that the holocaust

was coming unless he backed down," explains one

former CIA officer drafted for who were going to see Saddam,

"We were

the task. asking

them

finding people

to pass the

message on

of what the military had in store for him." In addition, agency operatives

helped spread propaganda in other countries

what a bad guy he

is,

which was

easy."

The

"telling

them

CIA's overriding priority,

however, before and during the war, was to service the military campaign

—interviewing foreign

contractors, analyzing satellite intelli-

gence (which led to sharp disagreements with the military on

much

or

how

little

infiltrating agents

of

Saddams

arsenal

how

had been destroyed), and

with "electronic gadgets" into the

There were indeed "clandestine" radio

enemy capital.

—"the Voice ofbroadcasting Free Iraq"—but

into

stations

Iraq from Egypt and Saudi Arabia these,

though monitored by the agency, were under the day-to-day

control of local intelligence agencies.

information about

how Saddam was

"They would put out a about to

lot

of

defections of

fall,

senior officers, that sort of thing," one former agency officer

remembers. "Eventually we had

to tell the

FBIS [Foreign Broadcast

Information Service, which monitors and translates foreign broadcasts] to stop carrying their stuff

because we'd get

White House asking about some coup under way."

The Saudi

from the

was

broadcasts were the actual handiwork of a group

called the Iraqi National

Accord (al-Wifaq), founded by two

fected veterans of Saddam's ruHng Baath Party into exile. It

calls

that the radio station said

was a group that was

who had

to figure largely,

and

disaf-

later fled

fatally, in

the

aUT DF THE ASHES

46

agency's attempts to carry out the mission, and the story of

its

lead-

ing lights serves as an instructive example of the kind of "mecha-

nisms" to which the

One

CIA would eventually turn. Omar Ali al-Tikriti, had once enjoyed a

of the founders, Salih

career in Baghdad, from supervising pubUc hangings to diplo-

stellar

matic service as ambassador to the United Nations. post in 1982 under the mistaken impression

war would cause Saddam

Iran

to

fall

tliat

He

resigned that

recent disasters in the

and that he,

as a

Sunni Baathist

from Tikrit, could be a viable replacement. Subsequently reconciled in

some

fashion with Saddam, on August

trait

company

of Saddam was wall

for die Iraqi

size,"

1990, Salih

Omar had

London office of Iraqi Freight

highly lucrative post of heading the vices Ltd., a front

2,

government. "His

remembers a fellow exile. On August

company out of business

announced himself

as a

favor with the Saudis

member

—

Salih

6,

—thus

Omar once again He soon found

of the opposition.

(who were so ignorant of Iraq

opposition leaders included

Ser-

office por-

the day the United Nations announced economic sanctions putting the freight

the

fist

of

names of men long dead) and moved

to

that their

Riyadli.

Omar s

yeoman

partner in the Accord, lyad Alawi, had also done

service for the Baath Party, having

been a student organizer

in the

days before the revolution and later moving to London. In Great Britain,

he exercised a key function

the Iraqi Student Union in Europe.

he came

in contact

more

also of

he then used region.

By the

whom

Baghdad, since

They him a Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, which the Middle East.

direct value to Alawi personally, garnering

to great effect in various business enterprises in the late 1970s,

he had become

However, Alawi never lost his the

head of

students with

interest to

efite circles in

of connections in

fruitful array

The Arab

were of considerable

they tended to be drawn from

were

for Iraqi intelfigence as

company of intelHgence

rich.

taste for the

world of intelligence and

officers. Soft-spoken, eloquent,

suasive, always ready to hint at a

and per-

powerful connection or make a

promise, he proved adept at telling them what they wanted to hear in

language they could understand. In 1978,

proved

fatal.

By

that time, Alawi

diis

mutual affection almost

had reportedly entered

tionship with the British security services,

who would

into a rela-

naturally have

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE" been keen

to acquire a willing

and well-imormed source

4V

in the

huge

and intrigue-ridden Arab student community in London. Word of this relationship reached the attentive ears of tlie Mukliabarat in Baghdad,

who dispatched a team armed with knives and axes to Alawi s comfortable home in Kingston-upon-Thames to deal with the problem in summary him

he

as

fashion. Bursting into his

bedroom, the

finishing the job

by the

assassins

hacked

at

and were only prevented from

lay beside his sleeping wife

fortuitous appearance of his father-in-law,

who

The would-be killers ran off and the badly injured Alawi lived to make more money and pursue his conhappened

to

be staying

in the house.

nections with British intelligence and similar organizations.

By

the time the war began, Alawi had scented the interest of

Saudi intelligence and had joined forces with his fellow ex-Baathist,

Sahh Omar,

in

producing the Voice of Free Iraq. The pair soon

out, however, reportedly

fell

because of a dispute over a $40,000 check

Omar

from their Saudi paymasters.

gradually faded from sight,

although in the days of the uprising he claimed he was in close touch with senior

mount

members of

command who were

the Iraqi

ready to

a coup. Alawi retained control of the Accord, into which he

steadily recruited

—the type best suited —and was soon back London

former Baathist Sunnis

preserving the regime post

Saddam

to

in

awaiting fresh clients.

The money alhes

that allegedly fostered the split

was only a tiny fraction of the sums allocated by Prince Turk!

bin Feisel's organization, reportedly as ever, Saudi Arabia

had

until

August

Saddam s government and had tial

between the two

sent

much

at

politics

The

1990, been a staunch ally of subsidies (including substan-

weapons

one point asking

were the Iranians and the

How-

2,

contributions to the Iraqi nuclear

Kurds Muslim?" Far more expert

milfion.

its

Baghdad. The brigadier heading the Iraq desk

was famously ill-informed,

$50

as

in the

project) directly to

at

Saudi intelligence

suspiciously, "Are the

maze of

Iraqi opposition

Syrians.

Iranians' favored instrument was, of course,

Mohammed

Baqir al-Haldm and his Supreme Council (sometimes translated as

Assembly) for the Islamic Revolution itary

cans,

in Iraq,

complete with

arm, the Badr Brigade. The Iranians, no

were brooding about the

less

its

mil-

than the Ameri-

situation following their refusal to

OUT OF THE ASHES

4B help

the balance during the uprising, but there was

little

or no

prospect, as yet, for Frank Anderson and his officers to enlist

them

tip

as a

"mechanism"

after

all,

in the mission of

was universally feared

in

overthrowing Saddam. Iran,

Washington

as the

predator wait-

dismembered Iraq. on the other hand, were more accessible, having both

ing to acquire "chunks" of a

The

Syrians,

an impeccable record of vicious enmity toward the

rival Baatliist

regime

Baghdad and credentials as a member of the Gulf War coalition. Damascus hosted its own quota of exiled dissidents, former generals

in

and government

ministers,

blown across the border by unremitting

crackdowns and purges since Saddam had seized

total control in

1979

and immediately announced the discovery of a Syrian-backed against him.

Even before the war,

in late

December

plot

1990, the Syrians

had sponsored a meeting of local and visiting opposition figures who emerged with a program that called for the overthrow of Saddam and the installation of a coalition government.

The

Saddam routed from Kuwait and

following March, with

decided

intifada stiU blazing across Iraq, the Saudis

it

was time

another, grander gathering of the opposition, this time in Beirut. ever,

"Abu

derisively

Turki," as Riyadlis intelligence expert

known among

such a complicated

on

the

to have

How-

Iraqi affairs

was

Iraqi exiles, did not feel qualified to arrange

affair himself.

Since the Syrians had better con-

nections across the range of opposition groups than the Saudis, he

handed $27

million to his Syrian counterpart

and

left

him

to get

on

with the task, insisting only that some of his favorite Iraqis, such as Salih this

Omar, be invited

was

dents, pocketed

The

along.

far too large a

sum

to

Syrians, apparently concluding that

be lavished on a group of

Iraqi dissi-

most of the money and handed over the residue,

in

Syrian currency, to die Iraqis to pay for airfare and hotels. It

was the

largest gathering in the history of the Iraqi opposition.

All shades of opinion

Tehran-based

Communist

were

there,

Islamists, to the

from the ex-Baathists,

Party, as well as the Kurds.

They voted by

margin to escape from Syrian control and seek support

The Kurdish

delegation,

Western support

who had good

after their

plied the swing vote.

to the

remnants of the once-powerful Iraqi a

narrow

in the

West.

reason to be suspicious of

abandonment by the CIA

in 1975, sup-

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE"

49

For many of the delegates, these were heady times. As Laith Kubba, a civil engineer who had been living in England since he left

homeland

his

"Following the Gulf War, die whole

in 1976, recalls,

world wanted to know the Iraqi opposition." Kubba remembered well

how

different

it

had been

most of

for

"When Saddam was we suffered.

his exile.

and Great

being supplied by the United States

Britain,

There was a diriving industry forging extensions on

Iraqi passports so

we

that people could avoid being deported back to Iraq. Sometimes

had

the time

little victories, like

dam's ministers

who was

we

Thatcher government and

On

we demonstrated

London

in

into the

man

on Iraq

a

London

at a

Middle East

in charge of

U.S. State Department, a notably fatuous

Kubba introduced himself as

one of Sad-

forced him to leave by the back door"

one occasion, at a conference

Kubba bumped

against

signing a trade deal v^th the

affairs at

the

named John

Kelly.

Iraqi opposition.

"How

official

member of the

think tank,

long have you been working for the government of Iran?" said Kelly,

before turning his back.

As we have seen, the March 1988 gassing of five thousand Kurds in the city of Halabja in a single afternoon

ous silence from Western governments. job and spent a

month

was greeted by a thunder-

Kubba took

a leave from his

crisscrossing the United States.

he screened a video of the

effects of tlie attack to

interested, a lonely effort to

Over and over

anyone

who was

show the world what was going on

in

Iraq.

Unlike seasoned operators Salih still

Omar and

retained a certain hopeful naivete.

lyad Alawi,

When Saddam

Kubba invaded

Kuwait, he was on vacation in Florida. Following up on a chance introduction on a plane, he drove to Washington and secured an off-

the-record interview with a mid-level State Department (carefully avoiding the

that the

word

United States use the invasion

democracy

in Iraq.

answered the

"Who

official,

would offend our Eight months

told

later,

crisis to

advance the cause of

you we want democracy

in Iraq?"

flushed with bureaucratic machismo.

"It

Kubba was shocked.

friends the Saudis."

apparendy changed,

official

"opposition"). Earnestly, he suggested

the atmosphere at the State Department had

at least a little.

At

ready to meet with the Iraqi opposition.

last

the U.S. government was

On April

16,

Kubba was

offi-

OUT OF THE ASHES

so

daily received at the imposing building on

C

Street

by David Mack,

Mack

the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs.

read from a printed paper outlining U.S. government policy toward

Apart from ringing phrases concerning "sovereignty,

Iraq.

demogracy," Kubba

recalls

an

statement that

explicit

integrity,

"We

are not

involved in Iraqi poUtics. There will be no U.S. soldiers on Iraqi

Two

hours

later.

he had ordered U.S. troops

that

soil."

President Bush appeared on television to announce into northern Iraq.

Kubba was one of three Iraqis to meet with Mack. Sitting beside him were Latif Rashid, a brother-in-law of the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani who had been so brusquely treated on the day the war

Ahmad

ended, and

marked

as a

Chalabi, a portly gentleman not previously

committed member of the opposition.

Chalabi had a background very different from that of his companions.

He came

from an extremely wealthy Shia banking family who

the days before the 1958

leftist

coup

that overthrew the

murdered the king had been very much that revolution, the family

moved

to

as a

al-Kabariti, later

young man

in Beirut.

—smart, but not

pedia

Lebanon, where they continued

Lebanese Shia community.

prime minister of Jordan, knew Chalabi

He remembers him

wise."

monarchy and

a part of the eUte. Following

to prosper, forming close links with the

Abdul Karim

in

From

as a "walking encyclo-

Beirut, Chalabi

went

to

MIT

and

thence to the University of Chicago, where he acquired a Ph.D. in

mathematical knot theory, before returning to the Middle East and the family business. In 1977, he

moved

Bank, which expanded rapidly in an

boom of the early and mid-eighties. in the country. Chalabi himself

Amman, who were, however,

to Jordan ill-fated

Soon,

had

it

and founded Petra

Jordanian economic

was the

third-largest

bank

friends in very high places in

of little use to him in August 1989,

when

Bank suddenly moved to take over Bank because of what were termed "questionable foreign exchange deahngs." Allegations of fraud and embezzlement soon folthe governor of Jordan's Central

Petra

lowed, and Chalabi

left

the country to go "on hoUday," although his

journey to Damascus in the trunk of a friends car suggests a more urgent

exit.

embezzling

Ultimately Chalabi would be convicted, in absentia, of at least

$60 million (then and since he has strenuously

denied the charges, which he describes

as politically motivated)

and

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE" sentenced to twenty-two years' hard fish to

labor.

51

But by then he had other

fry.

Bank

Until the Petra

crash,

Alimad Chalabi had been barely

involved in the politics of his native country beyond offering support to the relatives of certain Shia

geons.

By 1991, however,

into the

who had vanished into Saddam s dun-

that

had changed and he threw himself

burgeoning world of the Iraqi opposition with energy and

initiative.

Even before the May 1991

the CIA's radar screen as a

man

finding,

he was registering on

of whom they should take note.

According to Laith Kubba, the feefing was mutual. Not long after the meeting at the State Department, he recalls, Chalabi confided to

him

that

"The Americans paid more than

the Afghans. If there

five

hundred miUion

a sound proposal, the United States

to

is

pre-

pared to allocate substantial sums for the Iraqi opposition.

We

is

should go for that money." Chalabi's arrival

bation at Langley. ation in

The

May

An

1991

official also

on the scene did not meet with universal approofficial

who became

recalls that

involved in the Iraq oper-

Chalabi had already been recruited.

remembers Frank Anderson

declaring, "I

want

all

of the growth in this program to be not this guy."

There were good arguments against the selection of Chalabi "mechanism."

He was, as the Americans noted, new to poHtics.

others in the exile firmament, he Iraq, let alone inside.

He was

had no network of supporters outside

a Shia, always an uncomfortable notion

for tlie Americans, and, of course, there

was a wanted man

On

in

as a

Unlike

was the awkward

fact that

he

Jordan thanks to the Petra Bank scandal.

the other hand, thought the spymasters, there was

recommend him. "He had good "Also, he had an Iraqi up the Shia cause."

organizational

much

skills," recalls

to

one.

nationalist viewpoint, rather than just talking

Another of the CIA team points out that "There were advantages to the fact that

he was a businessman, not a

man, he was used

to thinking in terms of a program.

planning to print a newspaper today, and uring out

how to

get

that approach. Also, that

we might be

politician.

it

into

at

As a business-

He would

start

the same time start

fig-

Baghdad six months from now. We fiked rich, which helped explain any money

he was

giving him."

OUT OF THE ASHES

52 Paradoxically, cal following.

one

one of Chalabi s chief assets was

"He had another

official. "All

— Barzani —had power

the others

Khoie people, and so on

his lack of a poUti-

advantage, in that he was weak," says

Kurdish leader], the

[the

bases, but

by virtue of

al-

that,

they had powerful enemies within the other opposition groups.

Chalabi was not a threat to anybody.

He was

manager. So his weakness was a benefit

—but then he was weak.

Every single part of this had a cost-benefit

The CIA looked far and wide in its

acceptable as an office

analysis."

search for useful assets. Follow-

ing his depressing conversation with Prince Turld bin Feisel in Riyadh,

Sayid Majid al-Khoie had been suddenly flown to Paris under the auspices of people

who described tliemselves

as

"French lawyers." There

he found himself talking to various French and American government officials,

though he was never quite sure exacdy who they were. The

Americans identified themselves

as "State

Department," but their

chief interest was not Iraq but the U.S. hostages in Lebanon. There

was some point

to this, since Sheikli

Mohammed

Hussein Fadlallah,

the hostage takers' spiritual mentor, was a disciple in religious matters of Sayid Majid s father, the revered ayatoUah.

Though the Iraqi cleric was more concerned about the fate of his own family and friends in Najaf, he agreed to do what he could. Flying to Tehran, he met the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who was scornful of his mercy mission, warning him that "The Americans won't help you whatever you do. Be careful with which group in

America you are dealing. Are they the CIA?" "I don't

al-Khoie,

know, but if I can save only one person

and flew on

to Beirut,

it is

worth it," replied

where Fadlallah was equally

about his sponsors: "Saddam has destroyed

all

your

cities

cynical

[meaning

Najaf and Kerbala]. The Americans just stood by and looked." Al-

Khoie had been promised a meeting with Secretary of State James Baker. But

when he

finally arrived in

Washington, Baker had

left for

Texas because his mother had died. Al-Klioie offered to wait, only to be told that, in any event,

he would not be seeing the

secretary.

In addition to his suspect credentials as a powerful religious Shia,

al-Khoie was not cut out for a serious career as a a prickly

independence

in

CIA asset, displaying own hotel bills.

such matters as paying his

Chalabi appeared a far better prospect.

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE" Later events all

their

made

it

appear that the

for a time pinning

hopes on fostering a movement, headed by Chalabi, that

would eventually take power any time. Looking

at

ClA were

53

at

in

Baghdad. This was

far

from the case

the hand he had been dealt, Anderson

apparently concluded that

it

was extremely weak. His operation was

only a part of a wider and somewhat amorphous scheme to box in

Saddam through

sanctions, the

now permanently

maintenance of a large U.S. force

stationed in the Gulf, and military protection for

the semiautonomous Kurdish zone in the north.

At

hope

tlie

upper

of the White House, there was

levels

that the "silver bullet"

would put an end

to

all

a lingering

still

from a disaffected bodyguard

their problems. Short of that,

in

Baghdad

CIA

officers

around the Middle East and beyond continually scanned the horizon for

anyone who could offer a connection inside the Iraqi military or

security forces in furtherance of the "palace coup" solution. In the

meantime,

as

one former CIA

official explains

with a shrug, the idea

was "a combination of sanctions and shaming him, humiliating him by showing that he did not control

all

his territory

and was not secure.

Create an ambience of 'coups and rumors of coups,' that sort of thing."

For some of the more experienced and honest upper

tiers

seemed about the best

One problem face

officials in

the

of the operations directorate, creating an ambience

the

that could

CIA

be done.

officials in

charge of the program did not

was money. Congressional intelligence committees, who did

not share the weary cynicism of the

official

quoted here, heartily

approved the notion of unleashing the CIA against Saddam and therefore authorized a budget of $40 million for the

first

year of the

operation. Anderson

was a seasoned enough Washington operator to

know that Congress

tends to measure action by expenditure. There-

fore, his it

main

priority

was

to

be seen

to

be spending that money. As

happened, there was a convenient outlet ready to hand.

Ever since the days when the agency covertly sponsored Radio Liberty

and Radio Free Europe

to

beam propaganda into Eastern Europe

and the Soviet Union, propaganda had been an important instrument of operations. Starting in the 1970s with a successful operation in the

Sudan, there had been a trend toward privatizing this

activity

by hand-

ing the contract to a suitable public relations firm. John Rendon, a vet-

DUT OF THE ASHES eran of political operations in the

Jimmy Carter

administration,

had

created what was widely considered an enormously successful propa-

ganda campaign in softening up Panama before the 1990 U.S. invasion of diat country. His

first

came via the botKuwaiti government after Saddam s inva-

encounter with Iraqi

tomless coffers of the exiled

affairs

Acting under a contract from the Kuwaitis, he had organized and

sion.

run radio and

TV broadcasts, beamed into the occupied emirate from

Saudi Arabia, to give succor to the population languishing under Iraqi military occupation.

Now the money tree

shook for him again

as

CIA

covert operations specialists sought suitable tools with which to harass

Saddam. At in

least

one of these

specialists

Panama and recommended him

for

had admired Rendon's work

work on the Iraq project.

In September 1991, Francis Brooke was looking for a job, having

fonnerly worked as a liquor lobbyist in his native Atlanta as well as having run the Georgia state census.

had once worked John Rendon,

in

for

Jimmy

an

equipment strewn

offer:

he might

Washington. "The place looked just

campaign headquarters," he cations

Now one of his political friends, who

Carter, suggested

"How would you

all

recalls.

over

like to

try calling

like a political

"There was high-tech communi-

it."

After a brief chat,

Rendon made

go to London to work on a program

describing atrocities committed by the Iraqi

army in Kuwait,

at

twenty

thousand a month?"

Brooke paused. "Let me think about it," he onds." Back don's

home he checked newspaper

background

in

was

plainly a

and came across Ren-

files

officer,

father, for-

heard his story and said that

CIA operation. Nothing loath, Brooke decamped

London, where he found a large salaries.

about two sec-

Panama and Kuwait. The young man's

merly a career military intelligence this

said, "for

He was not impressed.

in culturally adapting to

office full of

people on similarly

to fat

"These were people who had difficulty

London," he observes,

"let

alone the Middle

East."

One

of the projects under

way was an

"atrocity exhibition" of

photographs and other memorabilia traveling around Europe to impress people with the heinousness of the Iraqi regime. Central to this

undertaking was a sign-in book in which

their

comments. The hope was that

Iraqi exiles

visitors

could record

would thereby oblig-

ingly identify themselves for possible subsequent targeting

and

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE"

55

recruitment by the CIA. Other parts of the operation included a

roomful of "twenty-year-olds," according to Brooke,

sitting in

Wash-

ington writing scripts for radio propaganda broadcasts at $100 a day.

These were then shipped

to

Boston for translation into Arabic and

then on to radio stations in Cairo, Jeddah

Kuwait City "Yeah, officials

I

to

be beamed into

guess

Rendon

involved,

Iraq.

got a lot of the money," admits one of the

stressing

there was

that

summer of 1991,

involved. In the

Saudi Arabia), and

(in

certainly

"No one found any fraud, but an agency accountant was cally

opposed

to this connection with a

Rendon became the most audited

PR

outfit,

Ahmad Chalabi.

as well,

the Middle East."

in the

of course, as knowing a great deal about Iraq and

By the

commissioned by him

fall

to

made himself indisKubba remembers being

of 1991, Chalabi had

go on the road, speaking about Saddam's

Ignorant of the suspicious accountant back

indeed of the whole

CIA involvement

at

—and

Langley

—Kubba could never under-

stand Chalabi s fanatical insistence on receipts for everything,

bus

that

London office: "He was the one person who seemed to know what he

pensable to the Rendon operation. Laith

atrocities.

philosophi-

which meant

private firm in history."

There was one person who impressed Brooke was doing,

no fraud

there was an audit of the program.

down to

tickets.

To

lower-level employees fike Brooke, the entire plan appeared an

exercise in

futility.

Such

efforts as the "atrocity exhibition"

seemed

down Saddam. There was, however, another operation. The price being paid by the Iraqi popula-

hardly likely to bring

dimension to the

tion because of the tain

amount of

economic sanctions was beginning to

international attention.

Ahtisaari visited

Baghdad

in April

The Finnish

were

lifted.

politician Martti

1991 and returned with a gloom-

laden report predicting imminent mass starvation sanctions

attract a cer-

A month later,

a

among Iraqis

unless

team from the Harvard School

of Public Health toured Iraq and presented a more considered but hardly less alarming picture of the

immense and growing

a civilian population denied adequate food

suffering in

and medical supplies by

the blockade. Sanctions were at the center of U.S. policy as first

few months

it

had evolved

in the

after the war. It was, therefore, imperative to maintain

OUT OF THE ASHES

56

what casual readers of the Harvard

international public support for

team's findings

and other reports might conclude was an indefensibly

cruel policy. That

was where

tlie

CIA

operation, as deployed dirough

Rendon's public relations exercise in Europe and elsewhere, came in

"Every two months or so there would be a report about starving

useful.

Iraqi babies," explains

"We'd be on hand

and the video

that

one veteran of Rendon's propaganda campaign.

to counter that.

The photo

exhibition of atrocities

we had went around two dozen

countries. It

was aU

part of a concerted campaign to maintain pressure for sanctions."

Ahmad Chalabi, however, had no intention of confining his activPR in support of starving his fellow countrymen. He and

ities to

Kubba

Laith

(the

two are second cousins) and others had been con-

templating the formation of a

new

Iraqi opposition group. Unlike

the numerous others already in existence, this would be designed to

encompass

all

the major factions

and would have regime. later

It

as

among

Iraqis

opposed

to

Saddam

an ultimate aim the creation of a democratic

was called the

Iraqi National

Congress

—INC—a name

claimed by some to have been selected by the CIA, an asser-

tion indignantly denied

myself.

Rendon was

by Chalabi.

there

when

I

While necessarily concealing

did

"It's

a He!

I

picked the

name

it."

his relationship with the agency,

Chalabi had been pursuing an aggressive lobbying campaign for his

gained an audience in

members of ConDecember 1991 with a skep-

who heard him

out and finally agreed that

cause in Washington. After impressing various gress, tical

he

finally

Richard Haass,

"You've given us a

who

lot to

think about." That was enough for Chalabi,

flew off to the Middle East to spread the

word among the Arab

inteUigence services that the Americans were behind him. It

a

was

to

man who

be a recurring pattern. For the Americans, Chalabi was could speak for the

Iraqis.

For the

Iraqis,

Chalabi was

becoming "the American broker." In June, a horde of delegates flew to Vienna, Austria, for the found-

The expenses were paid by the agency, a fact known to most of the attendees. As one official helping to foot the biUs remembers with a smile, "There wasn't a single person there who didn't believe he was paying for it all out of money they believed he ing meeting of the INC.

not

had embezzled from the Petra Bank."

"WE HAVE SADDAM HUSSEIN STILL HERE" The

following month, the leading lights of the

Washington

for a full-dress presentation, to

5V

INC were flown to

meet with National

Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Secretary of State James Baker. tion

They were assured of American support

and

vigor.

for a democratic Iraq,

for their organiza-

and returned home

full

of hope and

Their hosts, however, took a more cynical view. The hopes and

prospects of Iraqis

who

resisted

Saddam were not

rated as high by

the professionals.

"We assumed," view Chalabi a

says

bit like

one of the

ning for statewide office in

Everyone knew he

had a

officials involved, "that

didn't

have a chance. His job was to act

was

stage

set for a tragic misunderstanding.

factions represented in the Iraqi National

now had

ment

better

at

like

he

serious chance."

Thus the they

we

someone in the 1950s runthe South on the Republican ticket.

people looked

Congress thought that

the unquafified backing of the United States govern-

in displacing

regarded the

The various

INC

Saddam. The White House and the CIA simply as

one more useful thorn

to stick in

Saddams

along with sanctions and whatever subterranean plot could be

flesh,

concocted to overthrow the dictator by means of a palace coup. In other words, the

INC was

The INC received

only half of a two-pronged U.S. strategy.

the pubhc endorsement of the U.S. government

because they were respectable democrats, suitably opposed to the Baath

Party's control of Iraq. In the

view of high

and Scowcroft, there was no harm done

INC

in

officials like

Baker

encouraging them. The

brought an added bonus in that the adherence of the Kurds to

this opposition

group forestalled Kurdish moves toward indepen-

dence, something that was always anathema to America's Turkey, facing

its

own Kurdish

ally

insurgency. In private, however, U.S.

national security decision makers believed that only a revolt within

Saddam's inner

However

circle stood a

halfheartedly,

chance of removing the Iraqi leader.

Washington

was

now

inescapably

involved in the political affairs of one of the most complex, divided,

and violent

societies

anywhere. That

tory and personality of the tion than

it

had so

man

far received

society,

not to mention the his-

at its center,

merited closer atten-

from the outside world.

THREE

The Origins of Saddam Hussein

Andoes notproverb Iraqi

unify,

says:

it

"Two

divides.

Iraqis, three sects." In Iraq,

The Sunni Arabs Uving

Islam

in the triangle

of territory between Baghdad, Mosul, and the Syrian border are a fifth

of the population but have always dominated Iraqi govern-

ments.

The

Shia Musfims

make up over

half the population and are

the overwhelming majority in southern Iraq between Baghdad and Basra. In the capital, they

ments have

outnumber the Sunni, though govern-

tried to limit their immigration. In the north, the

are a further

fifth

Kurds

of the Iraqi population, living in the mountains

along the Iranian and Turkish borders and the plains immediately below.

On

the map, the Mesopotamian plain, stretching 550 miles from

the mountains of Kurdistan to the Gulf, looks united.

and Tigris, the

rivers

one country in

Iraq, as the Nile did in Egypt.

made down

on which most

The Euphrates

Iraqi cities are built, never created

Their shoals and shallows

navigation difficult. In the last century,

the Tigris from Baghdad to Basra.

it

took a week to travel

When

the British tried to

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN move

soldiers

wounded

by the Turkish army

at

59

in the battle to relieve the garrison besieged

Kut

1916 during World

in

War

took

I, it

thir-

teen days lor the barges to reach Basra, only two hundred miles downriver.

Mosul traded with Aleppo and northern

Syria,

and Baghdad and

the Shia holy cities of Kerbala and Najaf were strongly connected to Iran, while in the far south, Basra

looked toward the Gulf and India. At

the turn of the century, Iraq was not a single political people.

It

was divided

autonomous

cities, religious

and

and near

into a series of tribal federations

each with

cities,

community or

its

own complex

tribal divisions

Even within

politics.

go deep. In 1915, the people of

Najaf rose in rebellion against the Turks and expelled them. All die rebels

were

declared

two years

The

Shia, but

even

so,

each of the four quarters of the

independent and remained so

itself

city

until the British arrived

later.

diversity of Iraqis

is

comphcated by another

predates the introduction of Islam. frontier zone. It

is

factor,

The Mesopotamian

which

plain

is

a

overlooked by the Iranian plateau and the moun-

tains of eastern Turkey. It has

no natural defenses and has always

been the prey of the powerful

states

battlefields. In A.D. 401,

surrounding

it.

Iraq

is full

of

Xenophon and the ten thousand Greek

mercenaries started their long march to the Black Sea after being defeated

at

the battle of Cunaxa, close to the Euphrates River and

southwest of Baghdad. Seventy years

Alexander the Great

later,

fought his decisive battle against the Persian Empire at Gaugamela, in the stan.

northern plains east of Mosul below the mountains of Kurdi-

People living in what became Iraq were in the front line in the

struggles

between

ian plateau.

The

Rome and

the Persian rulers based on the Iran-

critical battle

between the invading Arab armies,

newly converted to Islam, and the Persians was fought

on the lower Euphrates

dam Hussein was

in a.d. 637.

at

Qadisiyah

(During the Iran-Iraq war, Sad-

often referred to in the Iraqi press as "Qadisiyat

Saddam.") Vulnerability to foreign invasion

is

a recurrent feature of

Iraqi history.

The most important

battle for present-day Iraqis

insignificant, almost a massacre, side.

But the

and ended

details of this tragic skirmish are

year in a majority of Iraqi houses.

It

was

militarily

in total defeat for

one

remembered every

started the conflict

between the

OUT OF THE ASHES

6a

Shia and the Sunni Muslims that divides Iraq, as world, fourteen hundred years tic

What began

later.

stRiggle to succeed the Prophet

does the Islamic

as a

bloody dynas-

Mohammed ended

systems of belief. In a.d. 656, a

rival

it

civil

by creating

war erupted over who

should,be the fourth caliph in the newly created Islamic world, just

estabhshed by a series of explosive conquests. The Arab garrisons of Iraq supported

Ali,

the pious and gentle cousin and son-in-law of

Mohammed. Outmaneuvered

prolonged negotiations, he was

in

assassinated in 661 as he stood at the door of a newly completed

mosque on the Euphrates, Nineteen years

persuaded by

in Kufa, the first

his partisans in Iraq to

renew

caliphate. Uncertain of his exact plans,

desert in a.d. 680 with seventy-two

When

retainers.

Muslim

city in Iraq.

son Hussein, living quietly in Medina, was

later, his

his family's claim to the

Hussein

members

set off across the

of his family and his

they got to Kufa, they found they had been

betrayed. Hussein's supporters had been rounded up, and there was

no

governor sent by

local uprising to support him. Ubaidullah, the

Damascus, surrounded the

Yazid, the caliph in

httle

thousand archers and cavalrymen and demanded In their last stand, Hussein and his supporters

them

to cut off their

own

retreat

surrender. As they began to

and show

fall

band with four

total surrender.

dug

a ditch

behind

their determination not to

under the arrows of UbaiduUah's

archers. Abbas, the heroic warrior-brother of Hussein, heard the

women and children in their party calling out for water. He fought his way through

to the Euphrates with watersldn in hand, but as

returned from the river his hand was hacked

off.

Abbas, whose picture

as a mailed warrior going to war often hangs on the in Iraq,

propped himself against a palm

geoned him the

tree,

sword

in

that of

They were buried in

Ah

at

where

his

one hand and the Koran

death of the two brothers in battle became faith.

waU of Shia houses enemies blud-

to death with clubs and branches. Hussein himself was

last to die, his

Shia

he

Najaf

fifty

Kerbala,

in the other.

the founding

The

myth of the

where their tombs, along with

became the chief shrines of Shia from across the Islamic world. The last bat-

miles away,

Islam, attracting pilgrims

theme of betrayal, suffering, martyrdom, and redemption, has the same significance in the Shia tradition as the crucifixion of Jesus in Christianity. It appeals to the downtrodden and has always tle,

with

its

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM MUSSEIN

61

The

created doubts about the legitimacy of rulers in Baghdad.

tombs of Hussein, Abbas, and Ali became, of

shrine-

for the Shia, the equivalent

Mecca and Medina. Rulers of Iraq, from the Ottomans

Saddam

to

Hussein, have had to cope with the fact that the holiest shrines of Shi-

dominant

ism, the

and with millions of adherents

religion of Iran

across the Islamic world, are

on

their doorstep.

Deep religious differences were containable under the Ottoman Turks, who captured Baghdad in 1534 and held it for almost four hundred years. They were Sunni Muslim, but they had side the cities. Tribal federations,

government

identity,

The

was stated

deputy from Baghdad to the Ottoman parliament is

tribe gave pro-

which the government did

attraction of tribal loyalty for an individual Iraqi

"To depend on the tribe

control out-

openly despised and flouted

authority, controlled the countryside.

and a sense of

tection

who

little

not.

clearly

in 1910.

He

The by a said:

a thousand times safer than depending on

the government, for while the latter defers or neglects oppression, the tribe,

no matter how feeble

it

may be,

as

soon

as

it

learns that an injus-

been committed against one of its members, readies

tice has

exact vengeance on his behalf."

Governments

in

itself to

Baghdad grew

stronger over the rest of the century, but belief in the clan and the tribe as the only true protector of the individual

Under the Ottoman

never died.

Turks, Iraq was not a single country.

It

was

divided into three provinces, based in Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra.

This was

War

all

about to change. In 1914,

at the

beginning of World

the British landed a small force at the southern tip of Iraq to

I,

defend the nearby Persian

oil fields

against possible Turkish attack.

British troops easily captured Basra and, in April 1915, overconfident

due

to the lack of Turkish opposition, decided to

On the

map,

this

looked deceptively

bisected by

easy.

but

use,

which provide ready-made defense works

What

salt

to

Baghdad. plain

marshes and waterways, abandoned or

flat,

is

push on

The Mesopotamian

is

in

for a defending army.

followed was one of the most disastrous campaigns in British

imperial history.

The

British force,

Townshend, marched up the

under Major General Charles

Tigris to within twenty-five miles of

Baghdad. At Ctesiphon, in sight of the famous brick arch of a

sixth-

century Persian banqueting hall, the British won a victory but suffered

heavy losses against the reinforced Turks. They

fell

back downriver to

DUT DF THE ASHES

62 now

tumbledown and evil-smelling town in a bend of Here General Townshend withstood a Turkish siege of 146

Kut, then as the Tigris.

a

days while British forces based in Basra fought desperately to reheve

The

him.

him

British

commander

suffered a nervous collapse, which led

systematically to underestimate his supplies.

Forced into launch-

army outside Kut had

ing premature attacks, the

lost

twenty-three

thousand dead or wounded by the time Townshend surrendered. further seven thousand British prisoners died in a waterless

A

march

north to forced labor in Turkey, being treated with exceptional cruelty

by the inhabitants of Tikrit when they passed through that town. Today the British cemetery, a

little

below the

level of the Tigris in the center

of Kut, has turned into a swamp, the tops of the gravestones just poking out of die

shmy green water.

The next British advance was more calculated and successful. An immense base was built at Basra and supplies poured in from India. In 1917, Major General Sir Stanley

Maude

captured Baghdad before

dying of cholera. The British had always intended to annex the Turkish provinces centered

around Basra and Baghdad. They were more

ambivalent about taking Mosul province, which looked toward Syria

and Turkey.

It

was the heartland of the Sunni Muslims and had a large

Kurdish population. At to

hand over Mosul

to

first

the British concocted a Machiavellian plan

France

as part of the carve-up of the

Empire, which was to create the

new Middle

which surprised the French, was whoUy

East.

The

Ottoman

British

self-serving.

move,

They

also

planned to hand over eastern Turkey to Russia and wanted the French as a

cordon

sions.

sanitaire

between themselves and the new Russian posses-

In any event, the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 negated such

arrangements with the

czar.

much discussion over the next three

After

years, the British decided that they

needed the province of Mosul

defend Baghdad and Basra. They would keep provinces for themselves, thus creating It

was not an idea without

its

all

modem

opponents.

to

three of the Turkish

Iraq.

From

the very begin-

ning, farsighted British officials Uke Captain Arnold Wilson, the British civil

commissioner

creation of the

new

state

in

newly captured Baghdad, believed the

was a recipe

for disaster. It involved weld-

ing together Shia, Sunni, and Kurds, three groups of people

who

detested each other. In 1919, he told the British government that

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN the

new

state

S3

could only be "the antithesis of democratic govern-

ment." This was because the Shia majority rejected domination by the Sunni minority, but "no form of government has yet been envis-

aged which does not involve Sunni domination." The Kurds

whom

north,

it

was now intended to include

in the

in Iraq, "will

never

accept Arab rule." Wilson pointed out that three quarters of the

population was tribal and unused to obeying any government. These suspicions of central authority ran deep.

On the

War I,

eve of World

a tribe on the Euphrates had a chant that stigmatized the govern-

ment in Baghdad as "a flabby serpent which has no venom; we have come and have seen it. It is only in times past that it kept us in awe." Two years after Great Britain drove the Turks from the provinces that were to become Iraq, the country was on the verge of the greatest revolt in its history before 1991. It broke out in July 1920 among the tribes of the middle and lower Euphrates, but had support in

other parts of the country. As with the uprising seventy years

later, it

caught most experts on Iraq by surprise. Gertrude Bell, then the

most famous

British traveler

and writer

in the

Arab world, was

posted as an adviser to the British authorities in Baghdad. Just first

shots of the rebellion

were

fired,

as the

she was assuring the newly

commander General Aylmer Haldane that him that, having conducted many "heart-to-

arrived British mihtary all

was

well.

She told

heart interviews" with her Iraqi contacts, she believed: "The bottom

seems

to

have dropped out of the agitation and most of the leaders

are only too anxious to let bygones be bygones."

The

rebellion

was

essentially tribal, but the British

had managed

to offend almost every section of Iraqi society during their brief

occupation.

During the war with the Turks, the

promised an Arab regime, but had not delivered. An

who saw Gertrude

British

had

Iraqi notable

Bell just before the uprising in 1920 told her:

"Since you took Baghdad, you have been talking about an Arab gov-

ernment, but three years or more have elapsed and nothing has materialized." cers

and

There were other causes of

officials

the British.

who worked

The Shia

Iraqi resentment. Offi-

for the Turks

clergy disliked the

were marginalized by

new

authorities because

they were Ghristians. The tribes resented them because they were

more

diligent than the Turks in collecting taxes.

The tribesmen were

DUT DF THE ASHES

64

the British were to discover, heavily

also, as rifles

that

had come into

their

modem When the fight-

armed with

hands during the war.

ing was over, the British confiscated sixty-three thousand of them.

demanded

In Baghdad, nationafists Bell,

who

self-determination. Gertrude

alternated between nervousness and overconfidence,

railed against agitators in the city calling for unity of Islam

pendence if

anyone says boo

The

and inde-

She wrote: "They have created a reign of terror;

for Iraq.

in the bazaar,

the British had expected.

shuts like an oyster."

it

revolt lasted into 1921. It

was

By the time

dead and wounded and the

more

far it

was

serious than anything

over, they

had

lost

2,269

an estimated 8,450. Tribes in the

Iraqis

mid-Euphrates region ambushed and almost wiped out a battalion of the Manchester regiment. rifles,

The

rebels

made

skillful

use of their

though they were short of ammunition. "The Arab

is

most

treacherous," concluded General Haldane in frustration in his notes

on

fighting guerrillas.

when

"He

working peacefully easy reach."

The

overpower a small detachment, and

will

a larger force appears

he

will

in his fields

rebellion

—

put up white

flags

and be found

incidentally, with his rifle within

was never

fikely to succeed,

but

it

pro-

vided a potent myth for Iraqi nationalists. The uprising also saw the first

tentative

their

move toward

joint religious

first

unity between Shia and Sunni,

they disliked each other, some,

The

who held much

ceremonies in centuries. However at least,

hated the British more. at

one remove and cheaply,

through an Arab king. The problem with

this quasi-colonial control

British plan

was to rule Iraq

was that a monarch appointed by the

unknown

to the Iraqis,

whose very name was

British,

was tainted from the beginning. Different

candidates for the throne of Iraq were considered. in 1921,

backed by Gertrude Bell and

T

third son of the leader of the powerful

Mecca, whose claims rested on the Turks.

The

control. In a poll, the results of

government

it

choice

on

Faisal,

fell

family,

Hussein of

in

from the immediate

remained under

which

cent of Iraqis had voted for Faisal

A

final

his participation in the revolt against

problems of ruling the country, but

Iraq.

E. Lawrence,

Hashemite

British distanced themselves

Iraqi elections, the

The

eerily

their effective

resemble more recent

Baghdad announced

I,

that

96 per-

the only candidate, to be king of

hint of the monarch's real relationship with Great Britain

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN came

a few years later

perfume

his

bills,

which he had

Britain did not rely

Great

was

when Faisal toured England. His tailor and London both asked the Colonial Office to

supplier in

underwrite his

wanted

65

on

pay after a previous

failed to

Faisal

I

to reduce the cost of maintaining a garrison,

to use air

visit.

alone to rule Iraq. But they

and the solution

power. This has always seemed an attractive option in

Iraq, in the 1920s as in the 1990s.

The

plains, deserts, marshes,

and

The Royal Iraq now became the test-

mountains of Iraq are difficult to police from the ground. Air Force was effective during the uprising. ing ground for the cessors.

Ground

RAF as the military backup for Faisal I and his suc-

troops were withdrawn. Great Britain had promised

the Kurds self-determination, but eventually gave priority to incorporating

them

bomber

into Iraq. Arthur

"Bomber"

who

Harris,

Germany twenty

offensive against

years

led the British

later,

pretend that he aimed for military targets. In 1924, he

did not even

said:

"They

[the

now know what real bombing means, in casualties and damage; they know that within forty-five minutes a fuU-sized vil-

Arabs and Kurds]

lage can

be

practically wiped out

injured." Delayed-action

were

less

and a third of its inhabitants

killed or

bombs were used. Other British officials bombing of civilians was an effective way

confident that the

of winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis. "If the Arab population realize that the peaceful control of

our bombing

women and

Mesopotamia ultimately depends on

children," wrote Sir

Laming Worthington-

Evans, the British secretary of state for war in 1921, ful if

we

shall obtain the

"I

am very doubt-

acquiescence of the fathers and husbands of

Mesopotamia." Not everybody was so discriminating. After the revolt of 1920,

T

E. Lawrence wrote to the

London Observer

to say: "It

is

we do not use poison gas on these occasions." The new Iraqi government was designed to be weak. Between

odd

that

the proclamation of Faisal

I

as king in

1921 and the overthrow of the

monarchy in 1958, it never established its nationalist credentials. Real power remained in the hands of a small coterie of former Ottoman officers who had fought with the British in the war. They were joined by some members of the Iraqi establishment who had stayed loyal to the Turks. For almost forty years, the

same leaders

followed each other in and out of power. Nuri al-Said served as

prime minister fourteen times before he was

killed,

dressed as a

OUT OF THE ASHES

Se woman,

trying to flee

the strength of his fidential

memo in

Baghdad

had no

in 1958. Faisal

own government, which,

as

illusions

he admitted

about con-

in a

1933, was "far and away weaker than the people."

In the country at large, there were "more than one hundred thou-

sand

whereas the government possesses only

rifles

sand."

He

fifteen thou-

concluded:

"There

is

still

—and

say this with a heart fufl of sorrow

I

Iraqi people, but unimaginable masses of

human

—no

beings devoid of

any patriotic ideas, imbued with religious traditions and absurdities,

connected by no

common

and perpetually ready Faisal

so weak.

I

tie,

giving ear to

to rise against

evil,

prone to anarchy,

any government whatsoever."

did not mention the other reason for his government being

It

was devised by the

Force squadrons based

in Basra

British

and backed up by Royal Air

and Habbaniya, northwest of Bagh-

dad. If there were any doubts about the monarchy's

Great

Britain, they

Ottoman colonels.

Encouraged by Hitlers to whittle

al-Ilah (Faisal

heir),

laid to rest in 1941.

became prime

officer,

ernment sought

Abd

were

I

away

a former

Ali,

backed by four army

minister, victories in

Europe, the

British imperial control.

new

The

died in 1933, leaving the infant Faisal

and Nuri al-Said were forced

from Jordan and

dependence on

Rashid

to flee.

German

never came and Iraqi troops were defeated after a month's the four colonels

regent,

II as his

Great Britain sent troops

India. Despite the rebels' hopes,

The regent returned and

gov-

support fighting.

who had overthrown him

were hanged.

The monarchy had been saved for the time being. But it depended on Britain at a moment when the British empire was being swept away. Arab nationalist army officers toppled governments in Egypt and Syria.

Unlike these countries, Iraq had

Kirkuk in 1927.

wanted try,

From

1951,

oil. It

had been discovered

the international

to punish neighboring Iran for nationalizing

its

oil

in

companies

own

oil

indus-

Kirkuk started to bring in significant oil revenues. In the long term,

the possession of

ernment

made

immense

in Iraq, as

it

oil fields

strengthened authoritarian gov-

did tliroughout the Middle East. Oil revenues

the state independent of society.

and security forces without this

when

came

relying

on

It

could pay for large armies

taxes or foreign subsidies.

too late for the Hashemite dynasty.

On July 14,

But

1958, troops

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN

67

led by Brigadier

Abd

army

mixed Sunni-Shia background, stormed the

officer of

al-Karim Qassim, a thm-voiced, intense, ascetic

palace in Baghdad. Artillery set

the young King Faisal

II,

fire to

royal

the top story of the building. As

together with the regent and the rest of the

royal family, tried to escape out the

back of the burning building, they

were confronted by a semicircle of officers who shot them down with their

submachine guns.

The

fall

of the monarchy ushered in a ten-year period of military

coups, countercoups, and conspiracies.

The

price of failure

increased by the year. Qassim was overthrown and killed in a blood-

bath in 1963 in which after

being tortured.

became

States

five It

thousand were slaughtered, many of them

was the height of the cold war. The United

increasingly involved after the overthrow of the

British-backed monarchy. In 1959, Allen Dulles, the director of the

CIA, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "Iraq today the most dangerous spot on earth." successors were even weaker. ers

seemed

like a

mask

and had no appeal in strength

and

its

for

is

its

The Arab nationalism of the new lead-

Sunni Arab domination to the Iraqi Shia

for the Kurds.

leaders

The monarchy was weak, but

Kurdish nationalism was growing

were soon

in a

semipermanent

state of

rebellion.

Saddam Hussein for

who was

determine the

fate of Iraq

most of the second half of the century, came of age

at a critical

al-Tikriti,

to

moment in the history of Iraq. He was twenty-one when the monarchy was overthrown. Over the next decade, he learned the bloody

mechanics of Iraqi

them

perfectly.

politics.

When

By

1968, he

showed

that he understood

he was only thirty-one years

old,

he helped

engineer the two coups, within two weeks of each other, in which the Arab nationalist Baath Party, led largely by

men from

his

home

The political musical chairs of the previous ten years ended. Saddam and his party are still in power thirty years later. In later years, Saddam liked to portray himself as a man who succeeded in the face of adversity. By the 1980s, Iraqi poets were winning prizes for drawing parallels between Saddam district

of Tikrit, seized power.

and the Prophet Mohammed, both of

whom

were orphaned

at

an

ea

OUT DFTHE ASHES

early age. In reality,

Saddam came from a Sunni Arab family with him to the front of Iraqi politics.

just the right connections to propel

He was bom in

Ouija, a typical Iraqi village of mud-brick houses,

in the plains of northern Iraq

al-Majid,

bom

on April

28, 1937. His father,

was a peasant farmer who died either

just before

Hussein

Saddam

mother, Subha al-Tulfah, a

He was brought up by his strong-looking woman who invariably

wore the dark robes of the

Iraqi countryside,

was

or a few months afterward.

and

his

two uncles.

One was his mothers brother, Khairallah Tulfah, who lived mainly in Baghdad. He was not only Saddam s uncle and foster parent but also his prospective father-in-law, since

he and

his sister

Subha arranged

Saddam, when he was five, to marry Khairallah daughter Sajida. The marriage took place in 1963, when Saddam returned from exile in Egypt. Photographs taken when he was still a boy illustrate the real dynamics of the family better than myths subsequently woven by critics or propagandists. They show individuals from a traditional for

's

society trying to master the

modem world.

Khairallah Tulfah, living

in the city, has neatly parted hair, but looks uncomfortable in a

white

and checked

shirt,

Hassan,

who

and

strength of

because he was its

Saddam's stepfather, Ibrahim

tie,

al-

stayed in Ouija, wears a white headdress and a tradi-

tional long robe,

The

jacket.

carries a double-barreled shotgun

Saddams

by

his side.

family and clan connections matter

bom into a tribal society. He has

characteristics throughout his

life. It

maintained

many of

was a world of intense

loyalties

wdthin the clan, but cruel and hostile to outsiders. "Myself and

cousin against the world," says an old Arab proverb.

Saddam

my

later

painted a picture of a deprived childhood, claiming his stepfather

would rouse him

dawn by

at

tend the sheep." His

came from brothers

saying:

"Get up, you son of a whore, go

critics also stressed early

a dysfunctional family. In

—Barzan,

traumas to prove that he

fact, his

Sabawi, and Watban

—and

rehance on his

half-

his cousins, like Ali

Hassan al-Majid, to stock the senior ranks of his regime argue that

his

inner family was always tightly knit against the outside world, whatever its

inner tensions.

Saddam came from the which was strong Tigris a

in

al-Bejat clan, part of the

Albu Nasir

tribe,

and around the nondescript town of Tikrit, on the

hundred miles north of the

capital. Set

on low bluffs above the

THE ORIGINS DF SADDAM HUSSEIN river, Tikrit

was a decayed

textile

town, once

to carry melons to Baghdad. In so

was

far as

it

Otherwise, Tikrit

made

mark on

little

for building rafts

was famous

for anything,

it

century of Saladin, the Arab

as the birthplace in the early twelfth

hero, though of Kurdish background,

known

69

who

defeated the Crusaders.

Iraqi history. Its inhabitants

were Arab Sunni with a curious reputation for being long-winded. "To talk Like a Tikriti"

is

an Iraqi saying meaning to be too garrulous. By the

time Saddam was growing up, the town no longer depended on trade

and agriculture

Baghdad

Few

young men increasingly took the road

alone. Its

to get jobs in the

government and, above

all,

of the sons of estabUshed families in the capital were joining

officers' corps.

Shia and Kurds had

little

to

in the army.

loyalty to the state. It

its

was

young men, often the sons of petty tradesmen and landowners, from provincial towns like Tikrit

saw the army

as a route to

five years in

1941]." jailed,

Tigris

and Euphrates, who

power.

"One of my uncles was Saddam later recalled in a spent

on the upper

a nationalist, an officer in the Iraqi army," rare interview about his background.

"He

prison after the revolution of Rashid Ali Kaylani [in

Saddam was only four when

his uncle,

KhairaUah Tulfah, was

but he says that he often asked his mother what had happened

to him.

She would reply: "He

is

in prison."

important positions in the army.

Other relatives

also

reached

One of them, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr,

a reserved, quiet-spoken, but very ambitious brigadier, had a

Saddam s

influence on

career.

He was one

critical

of the rebel officers

who

took part in the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958 and later quarreled

He was bom in

with Qassim. traditionally

1914 into a family of petty notables

produced leaders

the 1963 coup, after which he politics at this

for the Bejat clan.

became prime

He was

minister.

who

a leader of

Given that

time were dominated by the military elite, Saddam,

Iraqi

who

never entered the army, could only have risen to power in tandem with a senior military officer.

Nor was

dam found

it

only in the upper ranks of the officers' corps that Sad-

alhes

and sympathizers. Sunni Arabs were only a

fifth

of

Ottoman times they had found jobs as petty officials. An example of the usefulness of this for the young Saddam was his astonishingly good treatment in the different prisons in which he was later incarcerated for political activity. For most

the Iraqi population, but since

OUT DF THE ASHES

70 Iraqis in the 1950s

But

in 1959,

members it

by

and 1960s, these were places of torture and

own

his

of the Baath Party to

was safer

for

them

fear.

Saddam was arranging for local be jailed with him in Tikrit because

account,

in prison than

on the

another prison

streets. In

Communist was being tortured for sawing through the bars of his cell. Saddam went to the prison governor and said he had cut the bars himself. Nothing happened to him. At a in

Baghdad

in the 1960s, a

moment

critical

escaped from

jail

where he was on had been

young Baath Party

for the

on

his

way back from the Higher

for trying to

trial

offense,

he persuaded

Abu Nawwas

way back from

Street,

court.

in

1966 he

Security Court,

overthrow the regime. His plan

to enter the presidential palace

ernment leaders attending in

leader,

and machine-gun the gov-

a meeting. Despite the seriousness of the

his prison guards to take

where

him

to a restaurant

Iraqis eat fish beside the Tigris,

During the meal, he and

six

on

his

companions sim-

ply walked out the back door of the restaurant.

may not have been rich or powerful in the 1940s, but they knew who they were. Saddam himself, in what sounds like a truthful explanation of his own social background, said he became a nationahst and not a Communist because in central Iraq, where he came from, social divisions were not great. He contrasted this with His family

the south and Kurdistan, where there were great landed estates. "I

never

He

disadvantage, even

felt at a social

landowner

said the biggest

Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr.

cousin

The

much more

in the district

but

at

got.

was a

relative of his

he beat

his relatives,

As a matter of fact, they

than he beat them."

Iraqi countryside

carried firearms. At

a peasant's son," he said.

"If he got angry,

but they gave him back as good as they beat him

I,

first

was a violent place

the family wanted

in

which everybody

Saddam

to

be a farmer,

the age of eight, Adnan, his cousin, the son of Khairallah Tul-

fah and later Iraq's defense minister, told

Saddam

that

he was learn-

Saddam was unable to persuade his him go to school. One day before dawn he set off across make his own way there. On the road he met some rela-

ing to read and write in Tikrit.

family to let

the fields to tives,

who approved of his

educational plans and agreed to help him.

Their response underlines the degree of insecurity in the 1950s.

"They gave him

a pistol

in provincial Iraq

and sent him off

in a car to

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN

Accounts of Saddams early

says his official biographer.

Tikrit,"

bloodthirstiness are suspect, but Dr. Iraqi exile, says

Saddam was told

me

Abdul Wahad al-Haldm, an

quite prepared to use his fearsome rep-

utation in the next few years.

"My headmaster

71

He that

recalls:

he wanted

Saddam from he came to his head-

to expel

When Saddam heard about this decision, room and threatened him with death. He said: 'I will kill you do not withdraw your threat against me to expel me from the

school.

master's if

you

school.' "

At the age often, Saddam went to stay with Khairallah Tul-

fah in Baghdad, but with frequent trips Later, after

nickname

home to

Ouija and

Tikrit.

become

Saddam's ascent to power,

"Tikritis"

was

But

after the

overthrow of the

for the Iraqi pohtical elite.

to

a

king in 1958, Tikrit was intensely and violently divided between

Communists and ground

to the

nationalists

such as Saddam. This

by Saddam

first killing

for

which there

is

is

the back-

reliable evi-

The victim was Haji Sadoun al-Tikriti, a warrant officer and Communist leader in the city. It happened in 1959, and the dead dence.

man was

said to

be a distant

relative of Saddam's.

Twenty years

Saddam, by now vice chairman of the Revolution cil,

came

to the school of a relative of the

Following

tribal tradition,

later,

Command Coun-

dead man

in

Baghdad.

he gave him blood money and a Brown-

ing pistol.

when he was twenty, the year before the overthrow of the monarchy. Founded in Iraq in 1952, it was Saddam joined

the Baath Party

small and tightly organized in cells of three to seven members.

Its

ide-

ology combined intense Arab nationalism with woolly socialism. will to

power always exceeded

its

idea of what to do with

Batatu, the great Iraqi historian of these years, writes:

it.

"A Baathi would

have looked in vain through the whole Uterature of his party for a gle objective analysis of any of the serious

Its

Hanna sin-

problems besetting Iraq."

But there was nothing vague about how the Baath Party intended to deal with after

its

enemies.

It

had quarreled with Qassim immediately

he took power because of his opposition to pan- Arab unity with

Egypt and

Syria. In their first

independent

initiative,

the Baathists

Among those recruited for the attempt was unknown party militant Saddam Hussein, by now a law

decided to assassinate him. the hitherto

student in Baghdad.

What happened

next

became

part of Saddam's

OUT OF THE ASHES

72

personal mythology, the topic of a government-sponsored novel and a

The Long Days. In the cinematic version of the assassination

film,

attempt, the part of

Saddam

is

played with verve by

and namesake, who somewhat resembled the

his cousin

Thq. assassination attempt on October cess.

Saddam Kamel,

Qassim was driving

Iraqi leader

came close to sucEast German embassy.

1959,

7,

to a reception at the

The Baath Party had a source inside the Defense Ministry who could tell them when Qassim would drive down al-Rashid Street, then Baghmain thoroughfare, with

dad's

Saddam s to

kill

role

was

Qassim.

its

white colonnades and luxury shops.

to provide covering fire for the four

Two of the gunmen were to open

backseat while two aimed

at

the front.

fire

men who were

on anybody in the

When the shooting started, Sad-

dam became overexcited and drew the submachine gun he was hiding under a cloak given him by Khairallah Tulfah, killed Qassim's driver, seriously wounded self in the shoulder.

He was

his uncle.

an aide, and

hit

The

assassins

Qassim him-

rushed to the hospital in a passing

taxi.

One of the attackers was shot dead, apparently by a chance shot from his own side. Saddam himself was hit in the fleshy part of his leg. "It was a very superficial wound to the shin," said the doctor who treated him. "A bullet just penetrated the sldn and of his

leg.

.

.

.

it

stopped there in the shin

During the night he cut it by using a razor blade and took

the bullet out."

Saddam

Years later

would die

told

King Hussein that he had thought he

after his failed attempt to

and detailed accounts of from Baghdad

his

to Ouija. It

kill

Qassim.

He

gave lengthy

escape from the police, up the Tigris

was a

critical

element

in his self-image as

an Arab hero. For seven years after the Gulf War, Saddam was

sel-

When he did reemerge,

was

dom

seen in public.

almost his

where

to the village of al-Dhour,

on the

had swum ashore, hungry,

his teeth chattering

Tigris,

first visit

thirty years before

from the

cold,

he

and on

the run.

Even if embellished, the story of Saddam s escape is a dramatic The journey was long because Saddam was not able to hire a

tale.

car in Baghdad. Instead, he bought a horse. Dressed as a bedouin,

he rode north glers

for four nights.

by police

officers,

When he

he explained

fell

into a trap laid for

his lack of

them: "Bedouin do not carry identity cards."

smug-

papers by telling

He needed to cross the

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN

73

to pay the owner of a barge one and a half dinars him and his horse across. The barge owner refused because curfew. Saddam decided he would leave his horse and swim.

Tigris

and offered

to ferry

of a

The water was cold and he was reached al-Dhour, on the

and

injured,

I

he recalled

Saddam

him

stay the night and

swum

thing

"Where

we

He

vengeance.

said:

is."

here and

me

clan finds out that

one of

is

true.

I

I

was

God

his brothers,

river;

killed

will

The

three years life

replied, until

apartment.

come dad.

He

Damascus and Cairo were the Once he gained power, his visits Most of

his

time in exile was

behavior

his

differ.

who was

military attache in

Baghdad and

to the faculty of law

at

Abdel Majid

Farid, the secretary general of the Egyptian presidency,

"We helped him go

"What

he found

in

fleeting.

odds with Qassim. Accounts of

me my

Syria.

spent in Cairo under the protection of President Nasser,

been an Egyptian

to hint at

a guard at an elementary school.

lived abroad.

were

we know

do you when

among you?" The man Saddam walked on

Saddam spent he

to foreign countries

it

protect us."

who was

means someuntil

suppose they follow

reached Ouija and safety and later escaped to

only time in his

you go

have committed a crime

your home. What good

in

but

When

of the house con-

Saddam s response was

"Supposing

on the other side of the

you say

man

are not going to let

against a clan kill

thief,

dry his clothes.

He

do you think you are going? You have

what the truth of the matter tribal

fire to

across the Tigris with your clothes on. This

very wrong and

is

you see

were wet,

thought he was a

first

a

lit

tried to leave in the morning, the

fronted him, saying: just

like

clothes

hadn't eaten properly for four days."

staggered into a house where people finally let

"My

later.

by the time he

was

far side of the Tigris. "It

in the movies, only worse,"

my leg was

in a state of collapse

who had

until expelled, says:

tried to get

him an

He was one of the leaders of the Iraqi Baath. He used to me now and then to talk about developments in Bagh-

to see

He was quiet, discipfined, and didn't ask for extra funds like the exiles. He didn't have much interest in alcohol and girls."

other

little too good to be true. Hussein Abdel Meguid, owner of the Andiana Cafe, where Saddam used to meet with

This sounds a the

friends in the early 1960s, describes

not pay his

bills.

"He would

him

fight for

as a

troublemaker

any reason," he

who did "We

says.

DUT OF THE ASHES

"74

wanted

to bar

him from coming

came back and Saddam finally left

here. But the police

he was protected by Nasser." Meguid says

said

owing the equivalent of several hundred

dollars.

Both the presidential adviser and the cafe owner were

Saddam

again.

He had

to

meet

a highly developed sense of favors received

or denied. Abdel Majid Farid was jailed by President Sadat after the

death of Nasser and

left

Egypt

he met Saddam Hussein

to live in Algeria. Fifteen years later,

again.

He was

dam

he became ruler of

after

president in the 1970s, he

He

paid his

bills

In early 1963,

Iraq.

He

came back

Meguid

bill at

saw Sadvice

and he came here.

extra."

Saddam had more important

Baghdad,

also

"When he was

recalls,

to Cairo,

and three hundred pounds

than his outstanding

Baghdad and

invited to

received financial help. At the Andiana Cafe,

the Andiana Cafe.

things to worry about

On

February

8,

a mil-

itary

coup

role,

overthrew Qassim. Support for the conspirators was limited. In

the

first

trol.

in

in

which the Baath Party played a leading

hours of fighting, they had only nine tanks under their con-

The Baath

Party had just 850 active members. But Qassim

What

ignored warnings about the impending coup.

tipped the bal-

ance against him was the involvement of the United

States.

He had

taken Iraq out of the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact. In 1961, he threat-

ened

to

occupy Kuwait and nationalized part of the Iraq Petroleum

Company

(IPC), the foreign

In retrospect,

it

oil

consortium that exploited

was the CIA's

favorite coup.

"We

really

Iraq's oil.

had the

ts

crossed on what was happening," James Critchfield, then head of the

CIA

in the

Middle East, told

Iraqi participants later

us.

"We

regarded

it

as a great victory."

confirmed American involvement. 'W^e came to

power on a CIA train," admitted Ali Saleh Sa'adi, the Baath Party secretary general who was about to institute an unprecedented reign of terror.

CIA

plotters

assistance reportedly included coordination of the

from the agency's

station inside the U.S.

embassy

as well as a clandestine radio station in

Kuwait and

advice from around the Middle East on

who on

eliminated once the coup was successful. his popularity in the streets of

the

in

solicitation left

TV

and

retained

his execution, his sup-

porters refused to believe he was dead until the coup leaders pictures of his buUet-riddled body on

of

should be

To the end, Qassim

Baghdad. After

coup

Baghdad

in the

showed

newspapers. By

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN one account, Qassim was buried corpse was unearthed by dogs

in a shallow,

who began

75 grave.

The

Horrified by

this,

unmarked

to eat

it.

peasant farmers reburied the body in a coffin, only for the secret police to dig

up again and throw it

it

in the Tigris.

The triumph of the Baath Party was between

its

civilian

and

military wings.

brief. It

was deeply divided

The new prime

minister was

Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, Saddam s cousin. Many of the other officers who overthrew Qassim were from Tikrit, though they

Brigadier senior

belonged to a tribe different from that of al-Bakr and Saddam. There

was

to hold the party together other than hatred of

little

In November, the

new president, Abd

al-Salaam Aref,

its

first

enemies.

persuaded

the military Baathists to turn on the civilian wing of their party and militia.

Soon afterward, Aref expelled the Baathist

officers

its

from the

government.

Saddam played no he took part jailed,

role in the

1963 coup.

in the massacres afterward.

It is

The

not even clear that

following year he was

but conditions were not onerous. The debacle of the

power put Saddam and al-Bakr in charge of They planned to seize power again, avoiding the mistakes The party was not strong enough to act on its own, but they

Baathists' first bid for

the party.

of 1963.

suborned Abd al-Razzaq al-Nayif, the head of military intelligence.

The coup took place on July 17, 1968, and, in contrast to what had happened five years before, this time it was the non-Baathist officers

who were

ousted within thirteen days of taking power.

Nine years

man

after

he tried to

of the Revolution

ond most powerful man deliberately shadowy.

kill

Command in Iraq.

He was

Qassim, Saddam was vice chair-

Council (the

The

RCC) and

the sec-

extent of his influence was kept

a civilian in

what was,

seventies, primarily a military regime, with

Saddam

until the late

Ahmed Hassan

al-Bakr

army him as "the new strongman of the regime." He seems to have assumed that they would not read Baath Party documents referring to them as "the as the president. In the 1970s,

tried to ensure that

officers did not see foreign publications referring to

military aristocracy." After the 1968 coup, the triumphant Baathists

were

as bloodthirsty as five years before,

more

systematic.

No opponent would

but their violence was

get a second chance.

took Nayif, the military intelligence chief

who had

Saddam

assisted the

76

OUT DF THE ASHES coup and then been displaced, to the airport with Nayif s back. Even in exile, Nayif was considered a possi-

Baathists in their his

gun

in

ble threat. In 1974, an assassin tried to

ment. Four years

General Hardan

he was shot dead

later,

al-Tikriti,

1970 and was assassinated

no regime

in Iraq

security services

dam was

in

had been

competed

Iraq,"

all

as well as ferocit)^.

made

His attitude

merciless and unforgiving to enemies, grateful and

Tikrit."

is

no

Saddams

man

second most powerful

and

and

Between 1968 and 1979, Sad-

real

rise

rising before

in later years

in Iraq.

we run exactly as we

mystery about the way

one of Saddam s associates once

though

year. Previously,

four centers of power, which

said.

"We run

it

was extraordinarily

than ten years after he had fled for his

little

in a hotel

Kuwait the following

for power.

generous to friends. "There

used to run

London apartin the same city.

in his

stable because army, party, tribe,

him almost impossible to overthrow. Saddam at this period had charm tribal,

him

the minister of defense, was dismissed in

able to get a grip on

was very

kill

life

from Baghdad, he was the

He was

dawn. There was

httle

he had trouble with

rapid. Less

hardworking, sleeping

wrong with

his back.

He

his health,

developed a

When younger, he smoked a Boumedienne of Algieria introduced him to cigars, which he has smoked ever since. For relaxation, all the Tikritis were fans of gypsy dancing, known as kawliya. Bakr used to phone Iraqi television to ask for a program of gypsy dancing. When it was finished, he would call again, congratulate them, and ask for more dancing. Iraqi viewers were irritated to find promised coverage of football matches abandoned for the kawliya. (When General Hussein Kamel fled to Jordan in 1995, one Iraqi said presciently: "He will go back to Iraq in the end. He can't last without taste for

Portuguese Mateus rose wine.

pipe, but President Houari

kawliya.") Television schedules only returned to normal

dam became

president, not because he was any less

when

Sad-

enamored of

kawliya, but because he had bought a video machine.

Saddam replaced

al-Bakr as president in July 1979.

bath with which he began his rule authority it

would

explains

in future

why nobody

from invading Iran

in

left

no

Iraqi in

stem from him. This

is

The blood-

any doubt that

important because

within the leadership tried to dissuade

1980 or Kuwait

in 1990.

all

him

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN No

was allowed. This mattered

criticism

tic Iraqi politics,

affairs, his lack

less in

where Saddam showed great

VV

terms of domes-

skill.

But

in foreign

of experience and unwillingness to take advice was a

recipe for disaster.

The opening moves were

in the crisis that led to the

in early July 1979. President

resign

and hand over

He

July 10.

said

his office to

he was

in

Bakr announced that he was to

Saddam

at a

poor health. But

there was strong opposition to

purge of the party

meeting of the rapidly

it

Saddam among other

RCC on

emerged that Muhie

leaders.

Abdul-Hussein Mashhadi, the secretary of the ruling council, objected

and demanded a vote on the he told Bakr.

retire,"

decision. "It

"If you are iU,

inconceivable you should

is

why don't you take

Saddam's opponents had waited too long to

act.

a rest?"

Muhie Abdul-

Hussein Mashhadi was arrested for questioning and presumably tortured. Barzan, Saddam's half-brother,

In the next few days,

On

destroy.

headed the

investigation.

Saddam toyed with those he was about

July 18, party leaders

were invited

to

to a dinner party at

the presidential palace. After the meal, they were each asked to write a detailed report of any meetings they might have

Abdul-Hussein or another suspect,

Mohammed Ayesh,

minister, the previous year.

The

accused Ayesh of acting for

Syria, Iraq's

bers of the

RCC,

had with

the industry

circle of suspects increased.

hated

rival.

In

all,

Barzan

five

mem-

were expelled. Along

a quarter of its membership,

with sixteen others, they were executed on August

8.

Branches of

the Baath Party throughout Iraq each sent a delegate with a

rifle

to

join the firing squad.

Saddam wanted

the purge to create

maximum

terror

and so

ordered a videotape to be made of one of a series of meetings where

he singled out those accused of conspiring against him. The tape indeed records a numbing and carefully orchestrated spectacle of terror.

As

it

begins, the delegates to a meeting of the Baath Party

leadership wait anxiously as

"We used to be

we even theless,

Saddam prepares

gathered the evidence," he

we were

knowing

this,

to speak.

able to sense a conspiracy with our hearts before

patient and

tells

the party leaders. "Never-

some of our comrades blamed us

but not doing anything about

for

it."

In a prearranged move, a Baath Party official gets

up and admits

OUT OF THE ASHES

78 his guilt.

Others

Saddam

later notorious for using

a purge. Ali Hassan al-Majid, the cousin of

call for

chemical weapons against the

Kurds, says to him unctuously: "What you have done in the past was

What you

good.

do

will

in the future is good.

You have been too

small point.

ator"

is

time

this

I'll

there's this

one

gentle, too merciful."

"Yes, that's true. People have criticized

dam. "But

But

me

for that," replies Sad-

show no mercy." After half an hour

taken away from die meeting.

a "conspir-

Nobody has any doubt about liis

fate.

The camera focuses on Saddam looking relaxed and smoking a cigar. Then he rises to speak again and now his voice has turned harsh: "The witness has

just given us information

that organization,"

Get

ringleaders.

spirators!"

He

As

goes to

invites

if

Get

out!"

other

fear,

party!

Long

affected

among

sit

them

he shouts. "Similar confessions were made by the

out!

In a frenzy of

"Long Hve the

about the group leaders in

by these

the party

to join the firing

Ambassadors and

members

of the party leadership shout:

God save Saddam from

live tlie party!

officials

loyal cries,

members

squad that

is

were

Saddam begins to weep. show of solidarity. He

in a

to execute their colleagues.

abroad suspected of involvement in the

conspiracy were called to Baghdad. For the "traitors"

con-

first

time, the families of

The body of one

also punished.

senior leader was

returned to his house in Baghdad in a pickup truck. The body showed signs of torture.

A note attached to the corpse said the leader had died

of a heart attack and ordered that there should be no mourning.

It

took a year for the significance of Saddam's takeover in Baghdad

to

become apparent

to the rest of the

years after Britain created Iraq,

Despite growing to mobilize

its

oil

wealth,

resources.

it

it

Middle East. For the

was paralyzed by

its

own

sixty

divisions.

remained a third-rate power, unable

The purge of the Baath

Party leadership in

1979 gave Saddam total control. He eliminated competitors for power within the party. He had already disposed of those outside. The long-running Kurdish rebellion, which had destabilized previous Iraqi governments, ended in 1975 when the shah of Iran withdrew his support for the Iraqi Kurds in return for territorial conces-

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN sions

by

Iraq.

The country was growing

79

produced 3.4

wealthier. It

milhon barrels of oil a day and, after Saudi Arabia, had the largest

oil

reserves in the Middle East. Internal feuding in the 1960s and 1970s

made

Iraq a marginal

power in the Middle East and a very small player in world affairs. Saddam now started on a sustained effort to win control of the Persian Gulf and leadership in the Arab world. His campaign had two phases: The first began with his invasion of Iran in 1980 and ended with Iraq's quahfied victory eight years later The second was much shorter. Frustrated by what he saw as an attempt by Kuwait backed by the United States and Britain to rob him of the fruits of his victory over Iran by driving down the price of oil through overproduction, Saddam invaded the emirate on August 2, 1990. It was a venture far beyond Iraq's political and military strength. The Americans and British were never likely to allow Iraq to win control of the

—

Gulf,

which has 55 percent of the world's proven

In 1979, this final disaster lay far in the future. political situation in the

oil reserves.

On the contrary, the

Gulf seemed to offer Iraq great opportunities.

In 1979, AyatoUah Khomeini, after sixteen years in exile in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf and subsequently in France, overthrew the shah and

returned to Iran. Militant students further radicalized the revolution

by taking over the American embassy and holding American diplomats hostage. This

had repercussions in

no reason why the revolution

in

groups saw

Iraq. Militant Iraqi Shia

Tehran should not be repeated

in

Baghdad. It

was not an idea ever

tradition than Iran. likely to unite the

The

likely to succeed. Iraq has a

more

threat of an Islamic revolution

secular

was always

Sunni Arab core of the regime behind Saddam. Nor

had Islamic fundamentalism any appeal

for the Kurds,

small but influential Christian minority.

may not have been

dence that one of the

first

attacks

It

by al-Dawa, the

still

less

the

a coinci-

militant Islamic

who was from Dawa threw

group, was against Tariq Aziz, then deputy prime minister,

Chaldean Christian from Mosul. grenade

at

him

as

A

militant

he was opening a student conference on April

a a 1,

1980, at the Mustansariyah, the ancient university in the heart of

Baghdad. The next day, standing

in the

meeting of students: "The Iraqi people

pouring is

now

rain,

Saddam

told a

a large and powerful

OUT OF THE ASHES

BD

mountain they cannot shake with

all

their

bombs. By God, the inno-

cent blood that was shed at Mustansariyah will not go unavenged."

few days

later,

Mohammed

bomb was thrown into

a second

of those killed in the

Bakr

first

attack.

the funeral procession

Vengeance followed

as promised.

and one of the

al-Sadr, a senior rehgious leader

heads of al-Dawa, was executed, along with his

A

sister Thirty

thousand

were expelled from Iraq. Saddam began to Khomeini as "that mummy" and Kliomeini called for

Iraqis of Iranian origin

refer to Ayatollah

army to

the Iraqi

leave

its

barracks and overthrow Saddam.

This was largely a blind. There was Htde threat to ship from the disanned

and

Saddam s

leaderless Iraqi Shia. Instead, the chaos in

the Iranian army and the diplomatic isolation of Iran

Saddam an

leader-

seemed

to offer

A hint of the real thinking in the Iraqi leader-

opportunity.

comes from a peculiar source. A declassified note from whose name is blacked out, of the Defense Intelligence

ship at this time

an agent,

Agency, the intelligence arm of the Pentagon, reported from Baghdad

on April 8 with

had ambitious plans

that Iraq

bomb

attacks

by al-Dawa.

for Iran tliat

He said:

that Iraq will attack Iran. Iraq has

"There

is

had nothing to do

a 50 percent chance

moved large numbers of military per-

sonnel and equipment to the Iraq-Iran border in anticipation of such an invasion."

A

rocket attack on an Iranian

oil field

two days before had

commando unit. The agent said Iraq believed: "The Iranian military is now weak and can be easily defeated." been carried out by an

It

Iraqi

was a disastrous miscalculation. The Iranian population

times as large as Iraqi tanks

Iraq's.

advanced

The

easily,

three

is

Iranian revolution was popular At

but within a year Iranian

first,

light infantry

was

causing serious casualties. Iraq was disastrously defeated in the battle

of Khorramshahr.

mated

that Iraq

By

had

the end of 1982, American intelligence

lost forty-five

thousand dead and the same num-

ber of prisoners. There were mass surrenders of Iraqi

West and

tlie

Arab Gulf states worried that Iraq would

soldiers.

collapse.

rushed in suppfies. Washington even removed Iraq from the states supporting terrorism,

hving in Baghdad

Kuwait $10

esti-

though Abu Nidal, a

The They

list

terrorist leader,

of

was

at the time. Saudi Arabia gave Iraq $25.7 biUion and

billion,

mosdy

in the first

crossed into Iraq, that

two years of the war. Iranian

They also found, once they had ordinary Iraqi soldiers, mosdy Shia, stopped

troops failed in their assault on Basra.

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN surrendering. Within two years, the intelligence regular briefings

By

ian positions.

and

CIA was

satellite

B1

giving Iraqi military

photographs showing Iran-

1984, the U.S. embassy had reopened in Baghdad.

Supported by the United States and the Soviet Union, Western and

Saddam believed This long-haul strategy changed only when

Eastern Europe, as well as most of the Arab world,

he could sustain a long war. Iran captured the

Fao peninsula,

triangle of shifting

sand in the

a desolate but strategically important

far

south of Iraq, which sticks out into

the Gulf, by a surprise attack in 1986. Iraq planned a counterattack.

The Republican Guard was expanded from one to thirty-seven brigades. More weapons were needed. A problem was the low price of This hit Iraqi revenues and the pockets of previously generous

oil.

the Gulf. Iraq looked increasingly to the United States and

allies in

with Australia the only Iraqi creditors

Britain, along

After a

visit to Iraq,

reported that Iraqi

Clement

Miller,

officials told

being paid.

still

an Eximbank credit

him not

to

specialist,

worry "because Saddam

Hussein himself has sent around a circular that

said,

very simply, 'Pay

the Americans.'" In the Gulf, Iraqi planes were attacking Iranian

French Exocet

missiles.

The

facilities,

down an

By

under the American

Gulf The U.S. Navy attacked Iranian

showed

He

that the

all

290

civil-

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani believed

United States had joined the war on the Iraqi

persuaded Ayatollah Khomeini that the odds against Iran

were now too

great.

The

Iranian leader, telling his people that he

"drain the bitter cup," accepted a cease-fire on August

There was a second, unspoken reason

for Iran

had been using poison gas extensively on the

On April

ofl

eliminated the small Iranian navy, and in July 1988, shot Iranian civilian airliner en route to Dubai, kiUing

ians onboard. Iranian President

side.

sail

the United States effectively joined, on die Iraqi side, the so-

called "tanker war" in the

this

tankers with

Iranians retaliated against Kuwait.

agreeing that the Kuwaiti tanker fleet could flag,

oil

17, 1988, the

1988.

ending the war. Iraq

battlefield

from 1984 on.

Republican Guard counterattacked

carefully prepared assault. cially built

8,

The

must

at

Fao

in a

troops had previously trained at a spe-

model of the battleground at Lake Habbaniya, northwest of

Baghdad. Iranian Revolutionary Guards were pounded by heavy artillery, aerial

bombing, and

gas. After

two days of fighting, the Iran-

UT OF THE ASHES were routed. Iraq used not only mustard

ian troops

gas,

The mixture of deadly

gases such as tabun and sarin.

but nerve

gases

made

impossible for the Iranians to take countermeasures against

—and the

them. The effectiveness of gas attack

—may have convinced Saddam of the made

Iraq a regional

power and the

the seven countries that border die Gulf.

It

with an army often divisions and ended

with

the end of the war

it

it

started the

Saddam proved

up.

war

in

1980

fifty-five divisions.

coreligionists in Iran. Iraq

won

had fought

all

By

that

military defeats,

initial

the durability of his regime. For

patriotic exaggerations, the Iraqi Shia

Europeans, and

it

strongest of

had a tank force of four thousand and rockets

could reach Tehran or Tel Aviv. By surviving

of

great importance

of the weapon. This explains his determination not to give Iran

it

failure of the outside

world to react

The war with

all

the governments

fiercely against their

support from both superpowers, the

much of the Arab world.

None of this was cost-free.

Iraq, with a population of just 17 million

people, ended the war with at least 200,000 dead, 400,000 wounded,

and 70,000 taken

as prisoners. It

is

difficult

today to find an Iraqi

who

Saddam By the end of the war, he owed $25.7 billion

did not lose a close relative. There was also the financial cost.

fought the war on credit. to Saudi Arabia, states.

A

and the Iraq's

rest

at

to the

United

States,

crisis

Europe,

made much

of

because of the war. Confronting the emir of

an Arab summit conference in Baghdad in April 1990, he

"War

tler or

owed

of the industriafized world. Saddam later

economic

Kuwait said:

$10 biUion to Kuwait, and smaller sums to other Arab

further $40 billion was

doesn't

more

mean just

tanks, artillery, or ships. It

can take sub-

insidious forms, such as the overproduction of

nomic damage, and pressures gerated. Iraq's

oil

to enslave a nation." This

revenues in 1990 were due to

the course of the year

It

was

in a

much

rise to

oil,

eco-

sounds exag-

$13.7 billion in

better condition to pay

its

debts than countries like Brazil or Argentina.

The its

victory over Iran

extent. This

end of the in

It

real,

but

Saddam

was underlined on August

fighting,

Baghdad.

was

Iraqi

1989, a year after the

monument was opened Arc de Triomphe. Two metal forearms,

when an

was an

8,

grossly exaggerated

extraordinary

each forty feet long, reach out of the ground clutching steel sabers,

whose

tips cross,

forming an arch under which the Iraqi army

THE ORIGINS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN

S3

The arms were modeled from a cast taken of Saddam s own arms. They were too big to be made in Iraq and were cast in a metal foundry in Basingstoke, England. The invitation to guests for the

passed.

inauguration of the

monument

captures the flavor of the event:

"The ground bursts open and from

it

springs the

arm

that repre-

power and determination, carrying the sword of Qadissiya. It is ann of the Leader President Saddam Hussein (God preserve and watch over him) enlarged forty times. It springs out to announce the sents

the

good news of victory

been

filled

to

all

Iraqis

and puUs

in

its

wake a net

that has

with the helmets of the enemy."

Did the U.S. and Britain move to limit Iraq's power in the Gulf after the end of the war? Iraq later published a report from Brigadier Fahd Ahmed al-Fahd, Kuwaiti director-general of state security,

about his

"We agreed

visit

to the

CIA

October 1989. One item

in

with the American side that

it

was important

says:

to take

advantage of the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq in order to

common

put pressure on that country's government to dehneate our border."

The

point

is

only one of

entirely surprising that

many

Kuwait thought

in the report,

this a

and

good moment

it is

not

to settle

a territorial dispute concerning Bubiyan and Warba, two Kuwaiti

Gulf

islands that block Iraq's access to the

From February on,

Iraq's relations

riorated rapidly. In 1989,

with the U.S. and Britain dete-

Saddam severed relations with the CIA. John

Kelly, the U.S. assistant secretary

of

state, visited

Baghdad.

He

said:

'Tou are a force for moderation in the region, and the United States wants to broaden her relationship with Iraq." But Saddam immediately took exception to criticism of himself

On

on the Voice of America.

February 23, Saddam warned Arab leaders meeting

in

Jordan of

the waning power of the Soviet Union and the growing dominance of the United States in the Middle East.

—and the entire Arab world—

Gulf

ruled by the United States." At the zoft,

not vigilant, this area will be

same time, he arrested Farzad Bar-

an Iranian-bom journalist working for die British newspaper the

Observer,

dad

He said: "If the population of tlie is

who was accused of espionage. King Hussein went to BaghAbdul Karim al-Kabariti, who later

to appeal for his release.

became the Jordanian prime dam, This

is

minister, recalls:

"The King

said to Sad-

the beginning of the slippery slope [toward Iraq breaking

aUT OF THE ASHES with the West]. see what

Do

not

kill

can do about

I

him even

it.'

When

he

if

found that Barzoft had been executed [on March

15]."

said:

'I'll

Amman, he Saddam

sys-

On April 2, Baghdad radio broadcast a army officers. He said: "If the IsraeUs try anything

tematically escalated the

speech he made to

Saddam

a spy.'

is

the Idng got back to

against us, we'U see to

crisis.

that half their country

it

destroyed by

is

fire."

The speech was

in strong Iraqi dialect

audience. "I shall

bum half your house" is a colloquial expression com-

and designed

domestic

for a

mon among Baghdad street toughs. It

was a measure of Iraq's strength

that

on April 28

it

could

still

get

twenty-one Arab monarchs and heads of state to attend a summit in

Baghdad. Here Saddam targeted Kuwait for waging economic war against Iraq.

had moved

By the middle

of July, the

to the Kuwaiti border.

first

Republican Guard division

Two more

followed. There

was an

atmosphere of crisis, but an underlying presumption that the worst Iraq could do would be to This explains

settle its

why April

border dispute with Kuwait by force.

Glaspie, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, in a

notorious interview with

Saddam on

July 25, emphasized that the

United States had no opinion on "your border disagreement with Kuwait." Five days tee of die

later,

John Kelly told the Middle East subcommit-

House of Representatives

in

obligation for the United States to use

Washington

its

tliat

Kuwait certainly believed the threat was

limited.

emir, Sheikh Jabr al-Sabah, to the airport after the

and asked

sion, Sheikli Jabr

wrote to

weaken us and

said

he could

On July 31, on die eve of the Iraqi inva-

his brodier teUing

sions to die Iraqis at a final

Saddam drove its Baghdad summit

The emir

for the use of the disputed islands.

not give up part of his country.

there was no

forces if Iraq invaded Kuwait.

summit

in

him

to

make no conces-

Jeddah. "The Saudis want to

exploit our concessions to the Iraqis so that

we

will

make concessions to them in die demihtarized zone," he wrote. "As for the Iraqis, they wish to compensate for the cost of their war from our resources. Neither

demand will bear

fruit

.

.

.

that

is

also the position

of our friends in Egypt, Washington, and London."

Most of the

Iraqi leadership probably realized that

Saddam had

overplayed his hand, but after 1979 they were unlikely to contradict him. Tariq Aziz, the suave Iraqi foreign minister, later disclosed that the original Iraqi plan was for a partial invasion of Kuwait.

The

Iraqi

THE ORIGINS DF SADDAM HUSSEIN army was

to seize

Rumailah

Bubiyan and Warba,

The decision to moment" by Saddam

tries.

made

all tlie

The

U.S. and Britain

the Gulf to Iraq.

He

argued that

By

element

Saddam could have

islands off Kuwait, but not the

dif-

gotten

whole emi-

Saddam made easy

taking the whole of Kuwait,

world against him.

political miscalculations

invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Perhaps tional

would make no

were never going to hand over hegemony in

their task of uniting the rest of the

one of the greatest

"it

how much of Kuwait was taken by Iraq.

difference in the world.

away with taking two barren rate.

between the two coun-

take the whole of Kuwait was taken "at the last himself.

ference to the United States" It

as well as the disputed

that straddles the border

oil field

S5

It

was, perhaps,

by any leader since Hider at

the

last

in his personality, the warrior-hero,

minute, the

came

irra-

to the fore as

he compared himself with Nebuchadnezzar, S argon of Akkad, the Prophet

he had

Mohammed, and

rebuilt

Saladin.

At the height of the Iran-Iraq war

Nebuchadnezzar's palace in the ancient

on the Euphrates.

city

of Babylon

Now he would establish himself as the preeminent

Arab leader who broke the power of the West and what he termed "the emirs of oil" in the Middle East. In any event, once the die was cast,

there was to be no compromise or retreat.

In the

six

months between the invasion of Kuwait and the

the allied bombing, Iraqis waited for

Once

Saddam

start

of

to pull out of Kuwait.

the United States had assembled

its vast coalition and was army in Saudi Arabia, Iraq's position got weaker and more isolated. Saddam had sympathy on the street in many Arab countries, but there were no revolutions. The Soviet Union cooperated with the United States. At the end of the day, Saddam's own army would not fight. Eleven years after Saddam began his campaign to make Iraq a regional superpower, the country had been

building up

its

reduced to semicolonial servitude.

Nothing than the

illustrated the Iraqi leader's

enemy he was

he had determined neighbors

Now the

—and the

humiUation more starkly

forced to tolerate in his midst. Years before,

to build himself rest of the

victorious allies

weapons

—

world

to

that

would force

acknowledge

his

his

power

had made him accept a group of officially

sanctioned spies, charged with rooting out the weapons and the secrets that

surrounded them.

FOUR

Saddam

Fights for

His Long

Dr.

Hussain al-Shahristani lay on the

Arm

soft carpet,

unable to move.

Eight months before, in September 1979, he and the other

members of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission had been summoned by Saddam Hussein to a special meeting. The dictator, only recently installed as the absolute master of Iraq, informed them that the country's nuclear research should be redirected to "develop our potential

in

strategic

fields."

Al-Shahristani,

an internationally

respected expert on neutron activation, had been the only person to object to what was obviously a plan to develop nuclear weapons.

"We have in

signed the nonproliferation treaty and

nonpeaceful uses of atomic energy," he had said "Dr. Shahristani,

tics to

on

we

I

politics

flatly.

suggest you stick to your field and leave poli-

me," rephed the being the

cannot engage

art

dictator,

who then

delivered his

little

homily

of saying one thing, intending to do another,

and then embarking on yet another course of action.

During one

at

this

exchange, the room had gone deathly quiet. Every-

the meeting

knew what was

likely to

happen

to the short.

SADDAM FIGHTS FOR

LONG ARM

HIS

BV

bespectacled physicist for daring to defy Saddam. They were In one of the interrogation centers of the

Amn

right.

al-Amm, an

intelhgence service reporting directly to the presidential palace, Dr. al-Shahristani s wrists

were

tied

behind

back by a rope that held

his

him hanging in the air while they beat him for twenty-two days and nights. Then he was taken to face a "revolutionary court," charged with the capital crimes of spying for the United States, Iran, and Israel.

There were three judges, two of whom were

fast asleep.

True to form, al-Shahristani, even though half paralyzed from the torture,

had lashed out

the Prophet, he pointed out,

ham.

"I

hanging court.

at this

who

He was

descended from

was descended from Abra-

in turn

challenge you and the president to

tell

me who his grandfather

was." At the sound of this suicidal insolence, the two slumbering

judges woke up. "If your family has lived for land," continued the defiant prisoner,

"it

five

thousand years in

this

does not matter if you respect

the president or not."

The charges tliemselves, were enough

age,

someone on high believed be

still

useful.

cial section"

sixty

for

Saddam s parent-

speedy death sentence. But apparently

that the scientist's nuclear expertise might

He was consigned to life in prison and taken to the "spe-

of the

Abu Ghraib

men were crammed

random beatings or

When

alone the allusions to

let

to earn a

prison,

where anywhere from

execution.

they came and bfindfolded him one morning in August

assumed

1980, eight months after his arrest, al-Shahristani had

he was going luxurious

to

villa,

be

killed after

all.

that

But instead, he found himself in a

the former residence, so he later discovered, of the

minister for planning,

who had been executed

in the

previous year. His guards showered and shaved him still

forty to

removed only

into small, windowless cells,

paralyzed from the torture

before leaving him on the carpet.

—and

—

purge of the

his

drenched him

arms were in

cologne

He was going to have some impor-

tant visitors.

Two men came

into the room.

Shahristani recognized

member

him

as

One

of them stood by the door. Al-

Abdul Razaq al-Hashemi, a hard-faced

of the Baadiist inner circle

who was

then minister of higher

The other, whose features resembled those of Saddam Hussein, came and sat on a chair close by the recumbent physicist.

education.

a

"

OUT DF THE ASHES

Sa This was Barzan leader.

half-brother and close confidant of the

al-Tikriti,

At the time, he was chief of the Mukhabarat, the secret police

and one of the several competing

by the regime.

When he

intelligence organizations deployed

spoke, his voice was

full

"The president is very sorry that you have been license of the rival intelligence service,

"We would

tani.

ready for you "I

"I

am

am

at

like

fit

"We have give us a long

arm

.

.

,"

you to go back to work.

to al-Shahris-

We have a nice place all

and mentally paralyzed," repHed

we need you

important programs,

We

.

he turned back

al-Shaliristani.

to work."

atomic bomb.

"Sir

said. "It's

the palace."

physically

not

he

Amn al-Amm." After cursing to Razaq at the brutal

the fault of the

all

of friendly concern.

arrested,"

work on the

to

need the atomic bomb," Barzan explained,

map

to reshape the

"to

of the Middle East."

interrupted Razaq from the doorway, worried that his

master was saying too much.

Barzan waved a hand to quiet him. looking at the

man on

"Don't worry, he

is

in

the

mean what

say,"

I

he

said,

then turning to reassure his aide.

floor,

our hands.

"I

He

can never be free again."

Al-Shahristani tried to close off the discussion by protesting that

would be of no use on a weapons

his particular expertise

Barzan would have none of it. can do," he

said. "It

is

every

"We know your

Lying on the tani

still

floor, his useless

managed

to

answer back.

to

be

arms "I

and what you

duty to serve his country. Any-

citizen's

one who refuses does not deserve

ability

project, but

alive."

trailing at his sides, al-Shahris-

agree with you that

we

should

all

serve our country," he riposted. "But what you are doing does not serve our country."

Barzan looked

at

him, as al-Shahristani

recalls, "like I

was mad"

—

not unreasonable assumption under the circumstances. Then, says Shahristani,

'At least we are agreed that we should now and think about what I have said.'

and rephed, try.

Rest

al-

"He gave a yellow smile,' as we say in Arabic, a false smile, all

serve our coun-

Al-Shahristani was to have ten years in solitary confinement to reflect

on Barzan's words, but he never buckled. Eventually, during

the chaos of the Gulf

War

in 1990, his astonishing fortitude

rewarded when he won over the

was

"trusty" assigned to deliver his

SADDAM FIGHTS FOR

LONG ARM

HIS

Saddam

meals. This man, a Palestinian incarcerated by

Yasser Arafat, agreed to help

Mukhabarat

the physicist

car,

S9

as a favor to

him escape. Exiting the jail in a made his way to the north and

stolen

across

the Iranian border to freedom.

Saddam and

In al-Shahristani, individual

who

his

henchmen had found

refused to buckle. But they had

recruiting others to help deliver the "long

spoken.

The nuclear program went

presiding genius of Jafr Dia scientist. Jafr

had

point of telling

into high gear in

he

left

1982 under

that

would be impossible

it

The

tlie

friend and fellow

tried to help his imprisoned colleague,

Saddam

trouble in

arm" of which Barzan had

Jafr, al-Shahristani's

the project without al-Shahristani's help. this as a threat

little

a rare

to

even to the

proceed with

dictator interpreted

of noncooperation and had Jafr arrested the

moment

the presidential office. Rather than torturing this scientist,

Saddam opted

to

whip up

enthusiasm by having others tortured

his

to death in front of him. Jafr

saw the

light,

accepted the unlimited

resources and benefits placed at his disposal, and set to work.

By

1990, he was on the verge of success.

No one knows precisely how many biUions of doUars were lavished on the Iraqi bomb project. Even during the darkest years of the IranIraq war,

work proceeded

at

fuU speed.

The

scale of the project, tlie

creation of a network of foreign contractors,

and the success with

which the program was kept out of the international public eye were a

monument not only to the talents of Jafr and the overall director of the scheme from 1987, Saddams cousin and son-in-law Hussein Kamel (Barzan had sHpped from favor in 1983), but also to the insouciance of the Western powers.

It

project was complete.

was not as

Even when

agreed to help finance the Iraqi

repayment about

it,"

in nuclear devices,

says

if the veil

of secrecy surrounding the

a close U.S.

ally,

bomb program on

Washington took no

one former U.S. diplomat

Saudi Arabia,

the promise of action. "I

the Saudi contribution, "and so did the CIA." In 1989, a senior at

knew

in the region in reference to official

the U.S. Department of Energy learned that nuclear detonators of

the most advanced land were being shipped from the United States to

Baghdad, indicating that designs for the actual operational Iraqi nuclear warhead were far pected.

He therefore

more

sophisticated than previously sus-

requested that intelligence scrutiny of the Iraqi

— OUT OF THE ASHES

90

program be made a high

priority.

The request was

question fired from his post and exiled to a bureaucratic

official in

Siberia. In explanation of this curious indifference, recalls diat,

our It

ally,

rejected and the

"We knew about

and anyway, we

was off the

one former

official

bomb program, but Saddam was how far along they really were.

their

didn't realize

radar." Official assessments

assumed

that Iraq

was

still

ten years from producing an atomic bomb. In

fact,

die

bomb program proposed by Saddam

which had commenced

early operations in 1982

back

and gone

in 1979,

into high

gear in 1988, had been far more successful than anyone in the outside

bomb

world had realized. As with any

was the production of fissile materials

nium

program, the crucial element

—

either

uranium 235 or pluto-

239. Jafr and his associates pursued a variety of

means

for pro-

ducing the requisite materials, an enormously costly approach. Simultaneously, others

among

and technicians assigned

warhead design

The

the eight-thousand-strong force of scientists to the nuclear

as well as a missile with

weapons program which

target date for production of a complete

toiled

on a

to deliver the

weapon.

weapon was

1991. In

before the Gulf War, the weapons design team was on the

fact, just

verge of success.

nium enriched Realizing

The program to produce a sufficient quantity of ura"bomb grade" was, however, far behind schedule.

to

this, in

the

fall

of 1990

tlie

high

command gave orders to take

enriched uranium from die country's one

officially

acknowledged

research reactor (which had hitherto been kept separate from the secret

weapons program) and process

it

into

bomb-grade

material.

Had this crash effort been concluded, Saddam would have had at least one bomb by the end of 1991.

Only

in the fall of 1990,

pubhc support for war with for official U.S. concern.

when

President Bush was seeking to rally

Iraq, did

Saddam's

bomb become a matter

PoUs showed that Americans, while generally

unmoved by the fate of Kuwait and its royal family, were agreed that a nuclear-armed Saddam was a serious matter. Sites known to be associated with the Iraqi nuclear program were given a high priority in the

bombing

plans and

were duly pulverized during the

air offensive

including the plant where the "crash program" was being frantically

implemented. By the end of the war, the White House and the Penta-

gon congratulated themselves on having destroyed the bulk of Sad-

SADDAM FIGHTS FDR

LDNG ARM

HIS

dam's nuclear weapons manufacturing potential. In

bombing had

fact,

though the

command was

damage, the U.S. high

inflicted severe

91

being overly optimistic. The Iraqi Los Alamos, an enormous complex south of Baghdad, that was the center of the entire

at al-Atlieer,

nuclear effort, escaped unscathed,

its

unknown

very existence

to die

Americans.

Nuclear weapons were not the only "unconventional" weapons

espoused by Saddam oil billions

and the

in the years before the

financial support of the

embarked on a wild spending tists

of

Gulf War Flush with

Arab

spree. Just as

oil states,

he gave

his

Saddam had

his nuclear scien-

carte blanche to investigate every possible route to the production

materials for a

fissile

bomb,

so he authorized limitless budgets for

research and development on advanced unconventional weapons of types that had hitherto been considered affordable only by superpowers.

Some

Gerald

convinced Saddam to invest huge sums in

Bull,

a giant cannon. cal

A

of these initiatives verged on the bizarre.

Of these,

tlie

Canadian, Dr.

his "supergun,"

only ones that ever saw use were chemi-

weapons.

The

British

had used poison gas on

fractious Iraqi

Kurds

in the

1920s and the Baghdad regime had used the same means on Kurds

middle of the war he had so rashly

in the 1960s. In 1984, in the

launched against Iran, Saddam turned to

traditional

this

Iraqi

standby and began using chemical weapons in large quantities on the front

lines. It

proved wonderfully efficacious

as a

defense against

"human wave"

the

Iranians.

attacks of teenage volunteers launched by the With the help of foreign experts and a host of willing sup-

pliers, particularly in

made

Germany, the

Iraqi chemical

weapons industry

From the early use of mustard gas, World War I, the local technicians and their

rapid progress.

developed in

initially

foreign

helpers rapidly progressed to "nerve agents" such as sarin and tabun, developed but never used by the

Whereas old-fashioned breathed to

kill

World War

II.

skin.

Iraqi progress with these nerve-gas

weapons was widely advertised.

However, by the end of the war, Baghdad's assistance

in

mustard gas had to be

the victim, the nerve gases could be deadly from the

merest contact with a victim s

man

Germans

variants such as

—had

also

made

scientists

—again with Ger-

significant strides in

producing VX, a

OUT OF THE ASHES

92

yet deadlier nerve agent that had the additional advantage of being safer to manufacture.

Saddam was preparing to put chemical warheads on long-range missiles and launch them at Iranian cities. In the final weeks of the war,

General al-Samarrai

which

illustrates their chilling

alties. Staff officers air,

of a tactical problem facing the Iraqi army,

tells

determination to maximize civiUan casu-

were concerned

would not penetrate

into houses

that the gas, being heavier than

and

offices in

Tehran and other

Even those close to a missile strike might survive if they kept windows shut. The plan devised by the Iraqi mifitary therefore

cities.

their

was to

first

send in Iraqi fighter-bombers to

planned to bombard the in the

windows,"

strike at

Tehran. "They

with bombs that would break all the glass Saddam s former miUtary intelligence chief.

city

recalls

"This would allow the gas to spread."

At

least

one source present

Tehran

in

at

the time believes that

the Iranians were aware of the Iraqi plan and that factors that finally

it

was one of the

persuaded Ayatollah Khomeini to stop

fighting.

Even if the Iranians remained unaware of how near Saddam had come to wiping out a large slice of their urban civifian population, the Iraqi leader

felt that his initiative in

developing these weapons

of mass destruction had yielded ample dividends. Not only had they

broken the back of the Iranian mass enabled Saddam,

at

long

last,

to

cow

attacks,

but they had also

the perennially rebelhous

Kurds into submission. The horror of the chemical attack on the of Halabja, in which

dren had been

five

thousand Kurdish men, women, and

killed in the space of half

with further attacks on

civilians in

city

chil-

an hour, was followed up

other parts of Kurdistan.

According to General al-Samarrai,

if

the Iranians had fought on

they would have been subjected to attacks from the third of Saddam s

unconventional weapons

developed during World

initiatives.

War

II,

Biological

principally

weapons had been

by the

British.

Through-

out the 1950s and 1960s, Britain, the United States, and the Soviet

Union had spent many infecting an

enemy with

billions

of doUars in refining the means of

disease.

But by the end of the 1960s, the

community had forsworn the research and development of such weapons, a fact that did not deter Saddam from embarking on his own ambitious program in the 1980s. The principal "agent" on international

SADDAM FIGHTS FOR

HIS

which his researchers, working in deepest tions

LONG ARM

secrecy, focused their atten-

was anthrax, a bacterium that naturally

livestock.

When humans become

spores, tliey initially exhibit the five days, lapse into toxic

93

infects cattle

infected

and other

by breathing anthrax

symptoms of flu and then,

after

two

to

shock and death.

At the time of the Gulf War, the outside world had only the vaguest inkling of the scope and success of

gram, as

it

Saddam s

biological pro-

did of his nuclear efforts. Thanks to the well-advertised

deployment of chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds, the allied coalition

were more conscious of Iraq's potential

In the event,

the

allies

in that area.

Saddam never dared use chemical weapons

against

during the war, possibly out of fear of U.S. retaliation in kind.

Bush wrote a stem

Just before the war.

demanding

that

letter to

Saddam Hussein

he withdraw from Kuwait without conditions. The

president added that "the United States wiU not tolerate the use of

chemical or biological weapons or the destruction of Kuwait's

and

installations. Further,

rorist actions against

you will be held

members of the

oil fields

directly responsible for ter-

coahtion.

The American people

wiH demand the strongest possible response. You and your country will

pay a

terrible price if

you order unconscionable

acts of this sort." (It

has been subsequently assumed that Bush was threatening to use

nuclear weapons

if

Saddam

carried out any of the "unconscionable

acts" listed in the president's letter.

that

Saddam knew

that "if

A former senior CIA official insists

he used chemicals, we'd nuke him." Gen-

Saddam

eral al-Samarrai, intimate with

"Baghdad would have been a nuclear that, in fact, the U.S. military

at this time, believes that

target."

planned to

However,

retaliate

it

appears

own

with their

chemical arsenal in the event of an Iraqi chemical attack. General Walter

Boomer, the commander of the U.S. Marines

privately in

September 1990

in the Gulf, stated

that the United States

had shipped

large

stocks of these munitions to the region, ready for use in response to

Although the Pentagon issued a vehement

any Iraqi poison-gas

attack.

denial at the time,

Boomer was

certainly in a position to

know

the

truth.)

Along with

his

"weapons of mass destruction" Saddam had

also

invested large resources in long-range missiles with which to deliver

them on the enemy. Not only had he acquired

a large

number of

OUT DF THE ASHES

94 Scud medium-range entists

missiles

from the Russians,

had successfully labored

to

his

own

rocket

sci-

produce the "al-Hussein," an

adapted Scud with a longer range. Used against Saudi Arabia and Israel

during the Gulf War, though armed only with comparatively

innocuous conventional high-explosive warheads, the missiles pro-

duced mass panic

in Tel Aviv,

an unpleasant reminder of what might

Saddam had armed the weapons with more fearsome munitions some of which were already loaded in missile

have happened

if

—

warheads.

Thus

it

was that with the victory on the

battlefield, the U.S.

determined that Saddam would never again be able

one with mass destruction from chemical,

was

to threaten any-

or nuclear

biological,

weapons. The military were issuing glowing reports on the success of their

bombing campaign

against targets associated with these

weapons

programs, but just to make sure, the U.S. insisted that the cease-fire resolution passed

UN

by the

Security Council on April 3 should pro-

vide for continued economic sanctions until there had been a

accounting of

all

of Iraq's unconventional arsenal. (As

Washington was determined explicitly linking the rity

Council was, in

two

to continue sanctions in

issues

effect,

we have any

to

It

seen,

case.)

By

—sanctions and weapons—the Secu-

ceding control of United Nations policy

toward Iraq to whoever was adjudicating the question of weapons.

full

was a linkage that was

to

have profound effects

Iraq's

in the years

come. Phrased

in the uninspiring legalese

of all such documents, Security

Council Resolution 687 held momentous implications for the future of Iraq.

Apart from stringent injunctions regarding the payment of the

defeated country's foreign debts and compensation for damage

on Kuwait, the Security Council ordered the creation of a Special Commission "which shall carry out immediate on-site inspections of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile capabilities, based on

inflicted

Iraq's declarations

and the designation of any additional

the Special Commission

locations

by

itself."

Iraq was forever enjoined from developing or possessing such

weapons, along with any "nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material." According to the somewhat mangled prose of paragraph twenty-two of the resolution, once

it

was agreed that Iraq had com-

SADDAM FIGHTS FOR plied with

all

the requirements on

on exports of

sanctions

its

HIS

LONG ARM

weapons of mass

from Iraq would be

oil

made

twenty-one, on the odier hand,

95

destruction, the

lifted.

(Paragraph

exports to Iraq conditional on

the "policies and practices of the Government of Iraq," a far vaguer

The resolution was written within a month of the cease-fire, when Washington still held out hope that Saddam would fall a period concept.)

victim to an internal military coup.

Thus the

stipulations

on the

accounting for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were written pardy in the expectation that they

would be implemented by Saddam's suc-

cessors.

The

creation of the Special Commission, with the right of intru-

was an extraordinary imposition on Saddam,

sive inspection in Iraq,

who had

a leader

of his regime.

so successfully guarded the

Under the

lash of defeat,

unwholesome

secrets

he was being told to play

host to foreign "inspectors" while they conducted a fully fledged

espionage operation in his

The language of the

own

country.

resolution

makes

it

clear that

all

concerned

believed the task would not take very long. Iraq was given just

teen days to hand over types of

its

fif-

information on the location, amounts, and

all

nuclear, chemical, biological,

and

missile programs.

The

Commission would have 120 days to develop a plan for ensuring that Iraq had complied with the draconian stipulations of Special

the resolution. After

all,

given the well-advertised precision of the

American bombing campaign,

made up

first

this

commission,

little

more than

a bookkeeping exer-

This view was certainly shared by two very different men.

The

was Saddam Hussein.

The

A

was well aware that the bombing campaign weapons of mass destruction had been largely ineffec-

Iraqi leader

against his tual.

appeared that

of experts drawn from the United States, Great Britain,

and other countries, would be cise.

it

significant portion of his

uranium

to

bomb

production

facilities for

enriching

grade had not even been targeted. The Americans

were completely unaware that

Jafr's

engineers had adapted and

advanced a method of enriching uranium through the "calutron" system, or that Iraqi missile designers were in the process of devel-

oping a homegrown missile with a range of 1,250 miles. The

bombers had

failed, despite

enormous

efforts, to hit a single

mobile

OUT DF THE ASHES

96 Scud

missile launcher during the war.

Saddam

still

had large stocks

of chemical ammunition on hand. His main biological-weapons production center

Thus lution,

it

al-Hakam had remained untouched. The enemy

at

know

did not even

was

existed.

it

that as soon as the Security Council passed the reso-

Saddam ordered

his

diplomats to offer

full

cooperation with

the United Nations team that would be coming to certify that the

weapons had been or would be destroyed. At a private meeting the presidential palace, he laid out a very different agenda. "The Special Commission leader. will

"We

be over

Among

will fool

in a

is

those

a temporary measure," said the Iraqi

them and we

few months."

in

It

will bribe

them and the matter

Was a bad miscalculation.

summoned to this secret conference was General He knew exactly what his master was talking about.

Wafiq al-Samarrai.

Saddam

"thinks that everything

explained al-Samarrai years

possible

is

later.

tus gave presents of hard currency cies in the

world and to

if you

"We in the

officials

and gold to other intelligence agen-

who

are

now

governments." The Iraqi leader was under no

and

British inspectors could

he remarked

weak be

at the

have enough money,"

Iraqi inteUigence appara-

be corrupted

ministers in different

illusions that

in this way,

American

which was why

meeting that "the inspectors should come from

countries and from countries that believe the sanctions should

lifted."

Obviously, even the most venal inspection team could not be

completely neutrahzed, so Saddam formulated a policy of calculated concessions.

The

not complete

inspectors

would be given reasonably

—information

on

Iraq's

stocks

full

—though

of chemicals

and

was assumed that the Americans and their alHes would already have a great deal of data on these highprofile programs. The nuclear and biological programs would, howimported missiles because

ever,

it

be kept carefully concealed.

When the Iraqis heard who had been selected to head this "Special Commission," Tall

and

thin,

it

seemed

that

Saddam s optimism had been

justified.

with gray hair and a deceptively mild manner, Rolf

Ekeus was a diplomat from

traditionally neutral

and dovish Sweden

who had spent much of his career in the arcane world of arms-control negotiations. Iraqi diplomats remembered him fondly from 1976,

SADDAM FIGHTS FDR

HIS

when as Swedish liaison with the Palestine had worked effort that

them

closely with

PLO

get the

at

LONG ARM

97

liberation Organization he

New York to

the United Nations in

the right to speak in front of the Security Council, an

roused the venomous

ire

of the United States and

Israel.

In

1988, he had been his country's representative at the Conference on

Disarmament in Geneva, an ongoing international negotiation crafting

Baghdad government

a worldwide ban on chemical weapons. If the

had scrutinized his record closely at the time of his appointment to the Special Commission, however, they might have noticed an episode that gave

warning of trouble ahead.

As noted, when

Iraqi warplanes

showered

tard gas on the inhabitants of Halabja in

governments stayed mute.

Sweden, wished

No

sarin, tabun,

and mus-

March 1988, the worlds

one, including the government of

discommode Saddam Hussein, the hammer of

to

the ayatollahs. Ekeus found this outrageous and informed his foreign minister that, whatever the pohcy, he was going to

speech to the conference denouncing

he duly

ment

did.

He

was the only

in the world, apart

of barbarism

this act

make

a

—^which

representative of any govern-

official

from the Iranians,

to

do

so.

Like Saddam, Ekeus thought that the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, soon to be known as Unscom, with headquarters in

New

York,

would be a short-term operation.

should be over quickly," he said

would be cheap.

When

later.

he arrived

in

thought

it

At the time, he also hoped

it

New York

to take

he discovered that no funds had been allocated

The only way he could

organization. sonally

vouch

for a loan

fund, which he did with fact that

A humane

up

his post,

for the fledgling

some money was

to per-

from the secretary general's ready cash

some

he had a wife and

raise

"I

six

trepidation, reflecting gloomily

on the

children to support.

man, Ekeus had noted the reports of the suffering

caused by sanctions on

oil

exports

—sanctions

that

would remain

in

force unless and until he certified to the Security Council that Sad-

dam had complied with appointed. things.

years just

I

But

had things

I felt I

to

do before

I

moved

to

New

I

was

York, family

couldn't afford to wait a day," he recaUed seven

later. "Iraqi oil

about

Resolution 687. "I was in Vienna when

exports had

been thirteen

thirty-five million a day.

billion dollars a year,

My conscience would not permit

"

OUT OF THE ASHES

9a

me

to delay

even one

day.

I

That day

thought,

will cost the Iraqi

children thirty- five million dollars.'

Meanwhile, of course,

White House,

it

at

meetings behind closed doors

was being decided that sanctions would

Saddam Hussein remained

the

at

stay in place

—

power that is to say, as long as he lived. At the CIA, news of the courtly Swede s appointment was greeted with a certain apprehension. "We were very, very skeptical of

as long as

what began admitted rity

as Ekeus's

open-minded approach," a senior CIA

Nor were

later.

in

Bob

Gallucci, a State Depart-

officer suspected of "liberal" attitudes

toward arms control, had

establishment thrilled to hear that

ment

official

hard-line officials in the U.S. national secu-

been appointed

as the

Swede s

deputy.

Ekeus was determined that he should have

— team "People

I

who would owe than to him.

He

he knew from

trusted"

their

his

own people on

—rather than a group selected by

first

his

others,

own governments rather recruiting drive among people

loyalties to their

therefore set out on a

his days negotiating

chemical disarmament.

Among

them was Nildta Smidovich, an expert on chemical and biological weapons at the Soviet foreign ministry, son of a diplomat and grandson of the general who had Uberated Vienna at the end of World War II. Smidovich, a burly young

man

with drooping mustaches, had already

enjoyed the unique experience of ferreting out a forbidden weapons

program Back tional

—one

that

was being concealed from

in 1972, the Soviet

own government.

his

Union, along with the bulk of the interna-

community, had acceded to President Nixon's suggestion that

biological

weapons be

forsaken. But, under the justification that the

United States could not

really

have closed

down

their program, the

had carried on with and even expanded research and development of biological weapons. Even as the cold war wound down Soviet military

in the era of

rapprochement between the United States and the

reformist regime of Mikhail Gorbachev, this huge effort continued,

employing thousands of

scientists

whose very existence was kept

hidden away

secret even from

in

remote

Gorbachev

institutes

himself.

In 1989, U.S. secretary of state James Baker, apprised by his

own

intelligence of the secret Soviet effort, casually pointed out a build-

ing visible from the highway near

Moscow down which he was

dri-

SADDAM FIGHTS FDR

LONG ARM

HIS

99

ving with the then Soviet foreign minister, Edvard Schevardnadze.

weapons program," he

"That's part of your biological

news

to

who

Schevardnadze,

exchange to Gorbachev

upon confronted

said.

This was

kept a straight face but reported the

Gorbachev there-

at the first opportunity.

who

his generals,

brazenly denied the existence of

the program. Schevardnadze then charged Smidovich with the task

of finding out the truth. Relentlessly picking his thicket of

half-truths,

lies,

way through the

and evasions with which the Soviet

mili-

tary surrounded their bacteriological arsenal, Smidovich eventually

forced the military to admit what was going on. that

was

to stand

him

in

It

was an experience

good stead when Ekeus put him

to

work

investigating the secrets of the Soviets' former ally Iraq.

Others recruited for Ekeus's commission were no Scott Ritter, for example,

had been a career

less eclectic.

officer with the U.S.

Marines. During the Gulf War, Major Ritter, then attached to military intelligence, wrote a report

on the enormous

allied effort to

seek out and destroy the mobile Scud missile launchers deployed against Israel

and Saudi Arabia. His conclusion, that not a

single

such launcher had been destroyed, was not only accurate but sharply at variance with the official line from the high

command.

Such independent thinking was not

his career

prospects. Subsequently, he

fell in

likely to

enhance

love with a Ukrainian

woman

and, in defiance of official edicts against such liaisons between intelligence personnel and citizens of the former Soviet Union, married her.

While he was compelled

security risk, his wife

to leave the military as a potential

was recruited by the CIA

as a translator

and

duly laden with security clearances. Reviewing Ritter's resume,

Ekeus had no all

hesitation in signing

him up

for his team.

They were

entering uncharted territory. Not since an interalhed commission

had roamed Germany

after

World War

I

in a (failed) effort to

destroy the defeated country's weapons-making potential had anything like this been attempted. Ekeus's

first

forays to Saddam's capital

by old acquaintances from the fect English

and observing the

were

beguiling.

Iraqi foreign ministry,

all

He was met

speaking per-

niceties of diplomatic protocol. It

was

not until late June 1991 that he had a glimpse of the real face of the

— 1

OUT OF THE ASHES

aa

regime.

The

occasion was the

operation and

tlie

first

confrontation between the

UN

government. The inspectors had stumbled across a

crucial part of the secret nuclear program.

Technically, responsibility for dealing with Iraqi nuclear issues

belonged to the International Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA). This was the body that had regularly reported before the war that Iraq was in

full

comphance with the Nuclear Nonprohferation

Treaty and gave no signs of a covert nuclear weapons program.

was therefore

in the bureaucratic interests of the

any evidence to the contrary. However, seers operated as part of

It

IAEA to downplay

in Iraq, the nuclear over-

Ekeuss team. Their chief was an ebullient

American named David Kay. In late June,

pected nuclear

Kay was preparing facility in a

to lead a

team

to look at a sus-

place called Tarmiya, a few hours' drive

outside Baghdad. Saddam's plan to keep the scope of his nuclear

—and the degree which bombing— was already effort

to

secret

Jafr's scientists

it

had escaped destruction

in the

A month

one of

falling apart.

had managed

to

make

his

earUer,

way to Kurdistan and make The

contact with the American forces there before they withdrew. Iraqi nuclear overseers

were

unaware of the

as yet

betrayal, since

the scientist had faked a car accident, complete with an incinerated

Now

body.

the defector was telling

cans, information that

up shop

that Iraq

giant

to the inspection

Among his more

Baghdad.

in

had indeed found an

By

team

setting

interesting items of news

was

means of using calutrons around tried and discarded

efficient

magnets about twenty-five feet

in the

he knew to the Ameri-

that

all

was passed on

—

United States years before. this time,

CIA was

the

from the intelligence

willing to pass

satellites that

on information gleaned

hovered over

Iraq.

An

analyst

had

noted that large, round objects were being moved from a heavily bombed site called al-Tuwaitha to a military encampment in the West Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib. (Transmitting the information was proving a more

difficult

undertaking.

secure communications in Baghdad, so to

be sent

via a laborious

The all

UN

team had

as yet

confidential messages

no

had

book code, using a biography of George

Bush.)

Kay and

his

men, crowded

into

two Land Rovers and a bus, took

SADDAM FIGHTS FDR good care to

LONG ARM

HIS

IDl

arrive at the site unexpectedly, having led their Iraqi

"minders" to believe that they were headed to another destination.

At the

gate, they

were met by an astonished and angry base com-

mander who refused

to allow

American, threatening to

on

his satellite

call

them

the

UN

to enter.

Security Council in

New York

phone. Finally three inspectors were allowed to

climb a water tower just inside the fence.

men on

Kay played the ugly

A

few seconds

later,

the

the tower radioed to Kay.

"These guys are going out the back."

One of the Land Rovers

roared off in pursuit. Curiously, in view of

the importance vested in the whole inspection effort by the United

Nations and Washington, the operating on a shoestring. walkie-talkies picked

up

The

at

men and women on

the ground were

team was using their

own cameras and

Radio Shack. Their vehicles were

castoffs

from the British army, with the driving wheel on the wrong side for Iraq.

The one

racing to the rear of the base had a broken fuel gauge.

Two miles around the fence line, it spluttered to a halt, out of gas. The second Land Rover moved out, collected the stranded inspectors, and chased the convoy of huge transporters, heavily laden with calutrons, hurriedly exiting the base.

down

One inspector. Rich

Lally,

made two passes

the convoy and began to photograph the scene. Iraqi troops on

the convoy opened

fire

over his head.

off the

He ducked under the

as fast as he By Land Rover and demanded the camera and film, the

reemerged photographing

could.

the time

seat

officials roll

and cut

of film

He refused to turn over the camera. "The my wife told me before I left," Lally told Kay back at the base

was stashed on Lally s body. last

thing

gate, "was, 'Don't lose the

bloody camera.'

Kay finally called Ekeus on his satelhte phone and told him his men were under fire. Ekeus told him to withdraw. The fracas at the nuclear site was a turning point. It shattered any notions that the Iraqi nuclear program had been destroyed in the war or that the Iraqis were going to cooperate with the commission. Ekeus hurried to Baghdad. It was now clear, he told Tariq Aziz at

a meeting in Aziz's spacious

villa

near the

Tigris, that "Iraq has a

nuclear development program." Ever the diplomat, Ekeus chose the

word "development"

rather than "weapons" in order to be

more

pohte. Unfazed, Aziz denied everything without the shghtest trace

DUTDFTHEASHES

laZ

of embarrassment. For the

first

time,

Ekeus heard an explanation

with which he was to become famihar over the next few years.

you

we

really think

Iraqi with a beguifing

show of

sincere humihty.

"We

are not that

advanced, you know." The foreign minister and his deputy, Aziz's side, concurred,

as to

why

it

"Do

are capable of such an undertaking?" said the

throwing

in their

was simply impossible

own reasoned

for Iraq to have

sitting at

explanations

embarked on a

nuclear weapons program.

The

Iraqis

were

in the

middle of explaining that President Saddam

Hussein had ordered that the Foreign Ministry be dealings with the

in

charge of

all

UN inspectors when there was a sudden interruption

door opened and a uniformed newcomer strode noisily into the room and threw himself on a sofa "like a spoiled child," as Ekeus later as the

recalled. This

was Hussein Kamel, minister of defense, founder of the

Republican Guards, and overall supervisor of the huge

effort to pro-

duce weapons of mass destruction. From the moment of his the room, he clearly dominated the group of senior Iraqi

now

sat stiffly

and nervously

in their chairs.

Kamel did not speak English and the

arrival in

officials,

who

Alone of those present,

translation of

Ekeus s

carefully

enunciated points into Arabic was greeted with "coarse laughter from the sofa."

Of those

in the

room, only Kamel and Aziz knew that four days

on June 30, Saddam had set up a special high-level commitchaired by Aziz, to plan the concealment of weapons, materials,

before, tee,

and plans from Ekeus and

On July 7,

his inspectors.

the committee

came

to a tough decision. In

discovery of the calutrons, Iraq would have to

own up

view of the

to the nuclear

program. At the same time, however, the high-level group decided on a program to destroy, in secret, materials

wanted

on hand, the better

to keep.

The

dry riverbed close to

much

of the forbidden weapons and

to hide the essential items that Iraq

destruction was carried out later that Tikrit.

month

at

a

This decision was to dominate the whole

Saddam s hidden weapons

for years to come because, when Unscom deduced what had happened, the Iraqis were faced with demands to prove precisely what, and how much, had been destroyed. While the destruction was going on, some of the more precious

issue of

elements

in the Iraqi

weapons arsenal were being hidden away.

SADDAM FIGHTS FDR Some time

in July, the

LDNG ARM

HIS

secluded garden of a

villa in

1D3

Abu Ghraib was

torn apart as soldiers hurriedly buried a carefully chosen selection of parts

and production

from Project 1728,

tools

program

Iraq's

to

Unscom would

not even

learn of the existence of the project for another four years.

The bur-

manufacture

its

own homegrown

missile.

party was from the Special Republican Guard, an elite unit

ial

whose

duties

had hitherto consisted of safeguarding the person of

Saddam Hussein. The

villa

belonged to one of their

Izz al-Din al-Majid, Hussein Kamel's cousin

officers,

Major

and brother-in-law.

The same scene was being repeated elsewhere at other, carefully chosen sites around the country by members of this and other especially

trustworthy organizations, including the Mukhabarat

gence service and the

Amn

intelli-

al-Khass special security service, which

operated under the direct control of the presidential palace. So important

was task

tlie lies,

this responsibility that

were chosen only

the small

after the

number

of

men

selected for

most careful vetting of their fami-

their tribal ties, their absolute loyalty to

Saddam. They were being

entrusted with a secret that their leader considered almost as important as his

own

personal security.

It

may indeed be

that, for

the two were one and the same. These weapons had, after

Saddam, all,

been

conceived as the ultimate deterrent against his enemies in the world outside (not to mention inside Iraq's borders, as the Kurds had discov-

ered to their

cost).

By midsummer

1991,

involved (apart from to

Hans

it

was becoming clear to almost everyone

Blix,

concede the degree to which

head of the IAEA, who was reluctant tlie Iraqis

had fooled him over

nuclear weapons project) that Iraq was not prepared to

accounting of

its

various forbidden

embarked on an enormous gamble,

inspectors,

officials

had

tinue until

and

allies.

since

Saddam had for con-

we have seen, both President Bush and his senior

stated, for the record, diat

Saddam was gone. These

visible toll

full

by obstructing the

he was handing Washington a ready-made excuse

tinuing sanctions. As

the

weapons systems demanded,

through the United Nations, by the victorious therefore

make

dieir

on the people of

they wished sanctions to con-

sanctions

Iraq.

were taking a

terrible

There was, therefore, a slim

chance that outraged international public opinion might pressure the United States to

lift

the siege

—but not while Washington and London

"

aUTOFTHEASHES

1D4 could piously

insist that

Saddam was

clearly defying the

United

Nations by concealing his weapons.

The

Iraqi leader's

obduracy appears entirely

illogical.

Yet from his

point of view, the risks were evidently acceptable, especially as he tially

ini-

believed he could "fool" the investigators and get rid of them in

a short space of time. Back at

CIA

headquarters in Langley, Virginia,

senior officials pondering their opponents actions concluded that,

given the ruin inflicted on his conventional forces during the Gulf

War, Saddam

felt

he had

little

alternative. "In 1991,

conventional capabihty," explains one such after the

Saddam had zero

official. "I

war he was too busy dealing with day-to-day

long-term view.

He

think that right issues to take a

thought, 'We lost the battle, so we're going to

and grow the weapons programs.' Even though he was con-

retain

strained in his unconventional capabihty, that was his only option.

We

always thought that was what he was going to do."

"Unconventional" weapons held a natural attraction for Saddam because, after

all,

they had proved outstandingly useful in the past. As

noted above, the chemical weapons unleashed on the Iranians had turned the tide on the front lines and had played a key role in the

final

and successful offensives of 1988. The threat of using chemicals on Iranian cities

government Kurds

may

to

in this

also

throw

have played a role in convincing the Tehran

in the towel that year.

The

gas attacks

on the

same period had broken the back of the Kurdish

resis-

tance and reduced the population to a state of abject terror

Back

in the 1980s, in a relaxed

journalists

meeting with a group of

visiting

from the Gulf states, Saddam related an illuminating anec-

man walked through my village without carrying a weapon. An old man came up to him and said, 'Why are you asking for trouble?' He said, 'What do you mean?' The old man dote.

"When

I

was a

child, a

replied, 'By walking without a

attack you. Carry a

weapon

weapon, you are asking for people

so that

no blood will be

Apart from throwing an instructive dam's

village,

light

on

to

spilled!'

daily life in Ouija, Sad-

the story indicates his belief in the dangers of proceed-

unarmed and the benefits of possessing a powerful deterrent. He would fight long and hard to keep some vestige of his "strategic" arsenal. The United States and its aUies were no less determined to deprive him of any such capabihty so that King Fahd and their other ing

SADDAM FIGHTS FOR

LONG ARM

HIS

interests in the region could sleep in peace.

Thus the

stage

IDS was

set for

an ongoing confrontation.

One

veteran

CIA

covert operator admits that he and his col-

leagues were surprised as the extent of the secret Iraqi programs slowly

became apparent. "As we

greatly underestimated

what they

were before the war, so we greatly underestimated what they were after the war.

However, unlike Ekeus, we weren't disappointed to

were

find out the Iraqis

lying."

Over the summer of 1991, the CIA began judged Ekeus. Despite

his

As a

time,

first

in earnest

about probing Saddam s

agency became more willing to share infor-

result, the

mation. For the

had mis-

unpromising record in advocating disarma-

ment, the Swede appeared to be secrets.

to feel they

Ekeus was shown the

actual overhead

more important, he was

surveillance photographs and, even

told of

the existence and location of a "mother lode" of documents relating to the Iraqi nuclear program. In

team of in

forty-five

England

UN

for their

August 1991, a carefully selected

inspectors began training at a secret location

most important operation

yet.

The preparations were elaborate. The documents, according to the American

intelligence tip-off,

Office, in the heart of

were being kept

Baghdad. Ekeus and

would not have the luxury of browsing

his

at the

Central Records

people knew that they

at leisure

through the vast

amount of data in the building. Once the Iraqis realized what they were after, there was bound to be a confrontation. The team, therefore, trained hard on precisely which office on which floor of the building they would head

for.

So elaborate were the preparations for

mission that the inspectors' training cially

constructed full-scale

They had

to learn

how

site in

mockup

of the Baghdad records office.

complex documents

to recognize

in Arabic,

how to take pictures in a hurry, and how to do all this properly the time.

this

England contained a spe-

first

There would not be a second chance.

On September

24, the

team boarded a bus

Hotel,

where they lodged while

target.

The

exercise

in

at

the Palestine

Baghdad, and headed for their

was carefully planned

to

appear

as a routine

search in the course of which the inspectors would "discover" the

nuclear weapons data. Before setting

off,

was once again leading the operation

however, David Kay

—suggested

to U.S.

—^who

network

1

OUT DFTHE ASHES

as

TV

correspondents in Baghdad that they should hold themselves

ready to film an interesting scene that would soon unfold in the parking

The

lot

of the records building.

were not disappointed. Five hours

journalists

team reappeared

in the

parking

UN

the

later,

As they reboarded

lot.

their bus,

they were surrounded by armed and angry Iraqi soldiers. Inside,

they had raced to the specific offices and begun copying documents, videotaping and taking pictures as they did officials

The

so.

When

frantic security

stopped the photocopying, the confrontation began. Iraqis refused to allow the

team

to leave without their

hand-

ing back the documents already copied. Sequestered on their

air-

conditioned bus, the team refused to leave without them and the impasse continued into the night. The confrontation escalated as Kay

The evidence uncovered in the rapid satellite phone from his vehicle, included

broadcast his plight to the world. search,

he announced on a

the complete administrative structure of Iraq's nuclear weapons pro-

"We

gram.

are not willing to turn over film and videotape," he

declared. "This

is

absolutely essential for an inspection effort."

Tariq Aziz responded by accusing the confrontation. Kay,

he

said,

was a

confidential personnel records. list

UN

squad of provoking the

and the seized documents were

spy,

Other

Iraqi officials declared that the

of names of Iraqi nuclear scientists seized by the inspectors could

be used by Mossad, the assassination.

A

men for mosdy children, who

Israeli secret service, to target the

hundred and

people,

fifty

claimed to be relatives of those mentioned in the documents, duly

turned up in buses armed with neatly printed banners and placards in English and French.

"Return Personel

[sic]

They

read:

"Don't Trace

Records," and "Mossad Wants the Records."

While the operation was generally going fury with his deputy.

Bob

UN

Ekeus was

had gone

to

between

his role as

an

in a

Baghdad official

of

organization and his career loyalties as a U.S. Foreign Service

officer,

ment

well,

Gallucci. Gallucci

for the operation. Blurring the lines

a

Our Husbands,"

Gallucci was occupying his time by calling the State Departin

Washington, whence

his

views were disseminated by

department spokesmen. Thus, the American was ing Iraqi government claims that the Special

more than

a thinly disguised U.S.

implicitly confirm-

Commission was

little

espionage operation. Ekeus

SADDAM

FOR HIS LONG ARM

FI(3HTS

ordered him to stop. Irritated

1D7

Washington, unable to

officials in

comprehend the problem, speedily leaked news of Ekeus's order, thereby generating fresh headlines: "Ekeus Reprimands Teams." The Bush administration, paralleling Iraqi assessments, may have come to think of the special commission on Iraq as a useful arm of U.S. policy. Ekeus had forcefully to remind them that he worked for the Security Council and that Gallucci worked for him. Meanwhile the confrontation was escalating. President Bush declared that this was a "serious business" as the Pentagon began

moving troops back

Middle East.

to the

It

appeared that military

action against Iraq in support of the inspectors

haps because

had

it

was only just over

bombed

last

lot siege

months since the United

government caved

Iraq, the Iraqi

day of the parking

six

was imminent. Perin

and the inspectors were allowed

When

with their precious documents.

examined

States

on the fourth to leave

at leisure,

they

showed beyond a doubt that Iraq had indeed been building a weapon that could be delivered on a missile. A pattern had

nuclear

been established

that

denials, followed

by partial

tion

by the

was

to

endure for the next seven years: Iraqi

disclosure, followed

by further

investiga-

UN inspectors, leading to further Iraqi admissions. Thus

the Iraqi government

initially

denied that

it

had been engaged

in

—

work on a prohibited weapon in this case, nuclear. Following the initial investigation by the UN sleuths, Baghdad admitted that it had been working on methods of producing bomb-grade fissile material

—but not

parking that

to the point of developing an actual

lot siege,

Baghdad came clean

had been working on the

it

weapon. After the

to the extent of

conceding

"feasibihty" of building a nuclear

weapon. So

it

followed with the other categories of proscribed weapons.

Iraq conceded information on missiles imported from Russia, but

long concealed "Project 1728," the effort to produce

its

own

long-

range missile. In 1991, Iraq denied ever having investigated biological

weapons

no

less

by the Iraqis

work

than Iraqi

at

all.

This denial was progressively

six "Full,

Final and

amended through

Complete Declarations" submitted

government on the

subject, to the point

where the

conceded the production of weapons, but claimed that in the area

had ended

in

1991 and

all

all

weapons and materials

OUT OF THE ASHES destroyed

—

was greeted with

a claim that

justifiable derision

by

Unscom. Iraq had embarked on

Qa"

radiological

area.

Once

at first

a program to produce the "Al-Qabomb, an attempt to spread radiation over a wide

was

again, this

denied that

VX

any research on the

denied and then confirmed. Iraq

initially

chemical weapons establishment had done

its

nerve agent. This was ultimately replaced

with an admission that there had been such a program, discontinued

because

it

was unsuccessful

after only

some

six

the substance had been produced. Later the

produced went up

hundred pounds of amount admittedly

to four tons.

In 1992, the Iraqis began to explain discrepancies between records they produced and documentary evidence cited by

by claiming

that the previous July they

had

huge quantity of weapons and equipment rity

—though the

original Secu-

fall

Unscom

when pressed on weapons, manu-

supervision. Thereafter, the Iraqis,

would

Unscom

unilaterally destroyed a

Council resolution had forbidden them to do so without

facturing equipment, or

tlie

raw materials that could not be accounted for,

back on the argument that they had been destroyed. The

flaw in their case lay in the fact that they could never produce satisfactory documentation

regime such

on the destruction. In a

as Iraq,

it

ruthlessly authoritarian

was hardly credible that any

officer or official

would destroy important items of war-making equipment without clear,

written orders from above. Yet such orders were either never

produced

or,

when

accounts of the destruction of specific amounts

were produced, they turned out

to

be

clearly inconsistent with other

evidence gathered by Unscom.

The evidence emerged

only slowly, an arduous process in which

the scientists on the visiting

Unscom

mission would arrive for their

inspections from their offshore headquarters in

equipped by

known

as

British intelhgence as a secure

"Gateway"

—and

Bahrain

—

fully

communications center

descend on suspect

factories, offices,

research centers, or anywhere else evidence might possibly be concealed.

The evidence

collected

would then be analyzed and

collated

with data on Iraq's overseas purchases, reports from defectors, lite

satel-

photographs, and pictures from the high-flying U-2 surveillance

aircraft lent

arrive in

by the United States

Baghdad

to

Unscom.

for one of his periodic

Finally,

visits

and

sit

Ekeus would

down

across

SADDAM FIGHTS FOR

HIS

L

ON

ARM

C3

109

the table from the high-level Iraqi team detailed to negotiate with

him and painstakingly address all the discrepancies uncovered by his team between what the Iraqis claimed and what his team had uncovered

in their researches.

The process, which had brought Ekeus hurrying to New York without bothering to pack in the distant days of April 1991, stretched on

months and then

into cial

Commission

years. Later, die executive

ruefully

he had spent more of his

remarked that with the exception of his with Tariq Aziz than anyone

life

was under no illusion that he was dealing with Aziz, Iraqi

UN

fools.

else.

Such men

wife,

Ekeus

as Tariq

ambassador Nizar Hamdoon, and Deputy Foreign

Minister Ryadh al-Qaysi were, as he recalls, mats.

chairman of the Spe-

They could continue

to argue for hours

ting a point, never getting tired."

nocrats like General

Amer

No

less

very good diplo-

''Very,

and hours, never

forget-

impressive were the tech-

Rashid, deputy to Hussein Kamel, an

engineer trained in Birmingham, England.

There was a difference, however, between the cosmopolitans Aziz and

Hamdoon, adept

at

like

detecting the most obscure nuance in a

diplomatic communication, and the parochialism of even the most brilliant technocrats like Rashid. In 1994, for

the

New

tions

example, Ekeus

New York to inspire

lized his excellent connections in

York Times that argued for the immediate

lifting

later,

the

Washin^on

remained

Ekeus

Saddam Hussein

in power. "I don't

understand America," Rashid remarked

shortly afterward.

"The

New

York Times

is

owned by

Jews, but they are supporting us. Yet the Washington Post

ing us.

A

Post rebutted the Times, editorializ-

ing that sanctions should never be lifted so long as

is

the

attack-

Who is in charge?"

In dealing with Rashid, Ekeus had a secret

The Russian s

weapon

prior experience in dealing with his

in Smidovich.-

own

pursuit of their secret biological warfare program stood

stead in penetrating Iraqi obfuscations. as a

of sanc-

once Iraq had compUed with the requirements on weapons.

few days

to

uti-

an editorial in

formidable opponent.

On

The

military in

him

in

good

Iraqis recognized

him

one occasion, during a discussion

with Rashid on the topic of undeclared missile assets, Smidovich

who had been ordered

to

remain mute

—began

slowly from side to side, a prearranged signal to

to shake his

Ekeus

head

that the Iraqi

CDUTOFTHEASHES

IID was

lying.

Rashid

finally

exploded:

"I

cannot speak while Nikita

is

shaking his head like that." "Okay," said Ekeus. "I will

The

tell

Nikita not to shake his head."

discussion resumed. Smidovich once again concluded that

Rashid was not

telling the truth.

The ends of his drooping mustache

slowly lifted as his lips curled in an ironic smile. This was too

much

when he is smihng," shouted the Iraqi. While Washington may have been happy that Saddam continued

for Rashid. "I cannot talk

them with a ready-made excuse for preserving sanctions, Ekeus himself was sincere in his approach. At an early date, he

to provide

pointed out to the Iraqis the significance of paragraph twenty-two of the fateful Resolution 687, which

made

the lifting of sanctions on

oil

exports contingent on Iraqi compliance with the orders to account for

and destroy

their unconventional

making the point

it

was up

capability.

to him, not the U.S.

had complied with the resolution

certify that Iraq

did not go

that

weapons

He was

government, to

—a reminder

that

down well in Washington.

At times, Ekeus

felt

able to report a

little fight at

the end of the

tunnel. In October 1994, for example, he notified the Security

Council that "the commission

is

approaching a

full

understanding of

those past programs" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But, in reality,

the Special Commission was far from a

those programs.

full

understanding of

Two months after Ekeus wrote those words, a man appeared at the headquarters of a Kurdish

stocky, well-dressed

rebel group.

dam

He had walked for ten

days to escape the reach of Sad-

Hussein. This was none other than Wafiq al-Samarrai, formerly

chief of Iraqi mifitary intelfigence, the

first

had served during and since the Gulf War

high-ranking officer

to defect.

who

He had been in

contact with opposition groups in northern Iraq for over three years,

but had kept

his

weapons programs

explosive

to himself until

break with Baghdad. The that the

warmth of

knowledge about Saddams secret

he was ready

to

make

wily intelligence professional

a defector's reception

is

the final

had realized

directly related to the

novelty and value of the information he brings with him.

An Unscom

official

hastened to Kurdistan and interviewed the

newly arrived general. Referring to documents that had crossed

his

informed

his

desk

at military intelligence headquarters, al-Samarrai

SADDAM FIGHTS FDR

HIS

LONG ARM

1

1

1

manufacturing VX, the most deadly of all chemical nerve agents, but had actually loaded it into warheads, all of which came as news to

incredulous interviewer that Iraq had succeeded not only in

Unscom (and

to the

CIA and

British intelUgence).

Furthermore,

al-

Samarrai revealed, the Iraqi biological warfare effort was far more

advanced

—and

intact

that Iraq retained a biological

—than hitherto suspected.

number of

He

also reported

operational missiles, together with

and chemical warheads.

Not everyone wanted

to take

what al-Samarrai

said at face value.

His information flew in the face of what had previously been believed about the Iraqi weapons programs. Furthermore, in February 1995, Tariq Aziz offered Ekeus the outlines of an intriguing deal. If

Unscom were

to give Iraq a clean bill of health

and chemical weapons, Aziz would offer "help"

on missiles

in resolving the

issue of biological weapons.

The biological warfare program had been the most secret of all Saddams weapons initiatives, originally concealed even from officials as senior as Tariq Aziz and the army chief of staff. In its early years of operation, Unscom had discovered little about Saddams germ weapons. In fact, the organization did not even employ a single biologist until 1994. It took U.S. congressional investigators to

discover that during the late 1980s, Iraq had been buying strains of

anthrax and botulinum toxins from a biological supply firm in

The firm had failed to note or at least report immense quantities of these deadly pathogens purportedly required by Baghdad University, the purchaser of record Rockville, Maryland.

the mysteriously

which was,

in reality, acting at the

Unscom had been

suspicious of an

hour's drive southwest of

Baghdad

behest of the Iraqi military.

immense

facility at

al-Hakam, an

that covered almost seven square

miles of desert, but the Iraqis insisted that the buildings there, despite being surrounded by barbed wire and guard posts,

were

devoted to the production of animal feed and pesticides. In the absence of firm evidence, the inspectors did not probe further. It

was only after Unscom hired Dr. Richard

Spertzel, a graduate of

germ warfare program,

that the search for the

the long-defunct U.S.

Iraqi biological warfare

round-robin sent to a

program gathered speed. In response

number

to a

of countries requesting information on

OUT OF THE ASHES forwarded records showing that Iraq had

Iraqi purchases, Israel

bought no

ten tons of "growth media," used for manufactur-

less tlian

ing germs from the original strain, from a British company. Although

growdi media

is

tifying illnesses,

commonly used in hospitals and laboratories for identhis was an enormous quantity, enough to make tiiou-

sands of weapons. Soon Spertzels biologists found even more, as

much

as forty tons that

had found

way to

their

Iraq and, ultimately, to

al-Hakam.

Ekeus confronted Tariq Aziz with the

irrefutable facts his staff had

uncovered, but his opponent was unfazed. a

"When we were appointing

new minister of health," he said smoothly, "we had a choice between

a medical doctor and an administrator.

because he was considered more idiot.

He ordered far more of this

loyal,

We

and he turned out

to

be an

material than was needed."

Despite such creative excuses from the

becoming overwhelming.

picked the administrator

Iraqis, the

Rihab Taha, an

Finally, in July 1995, Dr.

intense, British-trained scientist, sat across a table

evidence was

from a group of

inspectors and admitted, reportedly near tears, that Iraq had indeed

had a germ warfare research program, though she denied

weapons had had

been produced. In

actually

one of the leading

lights

fact,

the scientist had been

of the biological weapons program. (Ekeus

already, unwittingly, played a big role in Dr. Taha's

had brought her and the redoubtable Amer Rashid discussion

on Unscom-Iraqi

bloomed on the East

River,

relations at the

Rashid

were married shortly afterward. ful pair," says

Ekeus

In August, as

we

that any

"I

to

life.

In 1993, he

New York for a

United Nations. Love

left his wife,

and he and Dr. Taha

was the matchmaker for this dread-

ruefully.)

shall see,

Unscom

received conclusive proof of

the flourishing state of the biological weapons program in a most

dramatic manner. As a

result, the Iraqis finally

function of al-Hakam as the central and,

some months

later,

had

to assist

That did not end the Unscom sifting

confessed the true

germ warfare production center

Unscom

in

blowing

biologists' mission,

it

up.

however. After

through thousands of pages of documents and hundreds of

hours of interviews,

it

was

still

impossible to account for as

150 bombs and warheads that had for the Iraqi air force.

For the

at

many

as

one time been manufactured

scientists recruited

by Ekeus

to seek

SADDAM FIGHTS FOR

HIS

LONG ARM

1

13

out these and other unaccounted-for weapons, that remained the central issue regardless of

of ordinary Iraqis cal or nuclear

To a

what was happening

who had never heard

weapons

of, let

to the vast majority

alone seen, a biologi-

plant.

certain extent, the

Unscom

inspectors

were shielded from

seeing the effect of the sanctions prolonged in their name. lived an isolated existence during their visits to

they did venture forth, willful officials

it

They

Baghdad, and when

was to encounter not starving children but

who all too often impeded their work or lied to them.

They were deeply convinced

that

Saddam had plenty of

resources

deepening misery of his people. Yet time and

available to relieve the

again they found evidence that he was instead spending

money on

weapons programs. In 1995, for example, Unscom detected a covert Iraqi operation to smuggle guidance systems for long-range his

On one

missiles out of Russia.

a demonstration for to deposit

Ekeus s

dead babies

made him very angry, spoiling a

good

case.

occasion, in 1995, the Iraqis arranged

benefit.

A

yet in a sense

Thanks

to

women

it

attempted

propaganda ploy

was a case of Saddam's crudity

Saddam, the date when Ekeus could

confirm that Iraq was complying with tion

group of

in his arms. This ghoulish

its

obligations

687 was continually postponed. Thanks

under Resolu-

to sanctions, there

was

a growing supply of little bodies to put in coffins. It

was

all

now growing

a continuation of the Gulf War. into the

The

casualty

claiming the lives of Iraqis officially

was

hundreds of thousands, many, many more

than had died in the actual bombing and fighting.

war had

list

ended

who had

in 1991.

not even been

The

siege

bom when

was the

Fl

VE

"Iraqis Will

Pay the Price"

In

May

security adviser, tions

M. Gates, President Bush's deputy national had officially announced that all possible sanc-

1991, Robert

would remain

in place

Saddam Hussein remained

and that in

"Iraqis will

pay the price" while

power The economic blockade

insti-

tuted after the invasion of Kuwait would continue.

Two months

later,

in

July,

garbage collectors

in

Baghdad

reported a sinister change in the loads they carted to the city dump.

A year before,

almost one third of

had consisted of food

all

household garbage

in the city

Now, after almost twelve months of war and sanctions, the scraps had entirely disappeared. Food, any food, had become too precious to throw away. Even the skins of melons were being saved and devoured. People were beginning to scraps.

go hungry. Before the days of sanctions and war, Iraqi doctors had considered obesity a national health problem and

overfeed dieir children. While

had pleaded with mothers not to

Saddam Hussein had squandered

tens

of bilhons of dollars on his war with Iran and his extravagant weapons

"IRAQIS WILL PAY THE PRICE" he had been careful

projects, oil

1

1

5

to lavish a sizaWe portion of the country's

wealth on the civiUan population. The World Bank classified Iraq

at

the same level of economic and social development as Greece. Iraqis

had grown accustomed

to a standard of free medical care that

have shamed many

world countries;

first

tliey

would

took the clean drinking

water that came out of their taps for granted; even the poor had

become used

to eating chicken at least

There were few chickens

left

once a

day.

now. Uncountable numbers of

these birds, bred from a strain developed by U.S. agricultural scientists

that

became known

electricity

as the "Iraqi chicken,"

powering their

flowing after the Iraqi chicken

first

modem

bombing

had died when the

henhouses had abruptly stopped

attacks

on the power

had been dependent on a

The

stations.

carefully designed diet

imported from abroad. Sanctions prevented any further supplies of the feed crossing the border, and in the market, a single sad-looking

Egg production had

bird cost the equivalent of thirty-seven dollars.

dropped from two just

two

The

billion a

year

—two

a

week

for every Iraqi

—

to

million.

rich diet, the

government-financed

London or Paris

trips to

specialized medical treatment, the clean water supplies

paid for by

oil

exports

—$13 biUion

ernment would gamer

just

in 1989.

Two

$400 milHon from

years

oil

under Turkish trucks

in defiance of the sanctions

United Nations. That

first

summer

after tlie war,

professional aid worker shipped to

had

later,

all

for

been

the gov-

smuggled abroad

mandated by

Doug

tlie

Broderick, a

Baghdad by the U.S.

charity

Catholic Relief Services, cast a professional eye on the breakdown in

the health system, food supplies, and the overall effect of sanctions on the

economy and

soberly forecast to us that, as a result, no less than

175,000 Iraqi children would inevitably

For the poor, the

die.

effect of an overall 2,000 percent increase in

food prices within a year of the Kuwait invasion was devastating. In the vast working-class suburb of

Saddam

City in the east of Bagh-

dad, the streets were dotted with what looked like heaps of rubbish.

On

closer examination, these turned out to

that people

For

were trying to

visitors to Iraq, the

be bundles of torn rags

sell as clothes.

most

striking evidence of the devastation

of Iraqi society was the plight of the middle

class.

DUTOFTHEASHES

IIS

When

the hundreds of thousands of Kurds fleeing

the postwar uprising had appeared on network

moved

1991, Western audiences had been

many

Saddam

after

TV news in early April

to pity partly because so

of the refugees shivering on the bleak mountainsides looked

"like us," doctors

and lawyers

in three-piece suits. Similarly, the sight

who would

of highly educated professional Baghdadis,

not have

appeared out of place in an American or British suburb, sinking inexorably to a subsistence level was in a

of those

way more

striking than the plight

who had always been poor.

On a blistering hot Thursday that first July after the war, a crowd of men and women

surged against the locked gates of

Fatimas

St.

Church in a quiet and prosperous-looking neighborhood near the cenSome of the women were dressed in the black chadors of the lower classes, but an equal or greater number showed by their

ter of Baghdad.

Western

and high heels

suits

had come

that they

were

solidly

explaining

how Iraqis were

him given

"Right

class.

They

to this Christian establishment because Catholic Relief was

about to distribute food. Behind the gate,

iar to

middle

Broderick was

responding in ways that were

his experience of famines

now throughout

Doug

the country,

all

too famil-

around the world:

we have

a classic response to

a food shortage, pre-famine. You have people selling jewelry here in

Baghdad. Your used-watch market are pawning

flooded with watches. Famihes

is

their carpets, their furniture, their gold, their silver-

ware. Anything that has any kind of value videos, their radios

—

in

—

their cameras, their

order to get cash for food."

There were now hundreds of shouting applicants on the other of the wrought-iron gates waving the

squashed

side

of paper that entitled them

The temperature was approaching 120

to a food handout.

The women

bits

degrees.

in front were being crushed against the gate, their faces

flat.

Suddenly there was a roar

as the gate

buckled and

crashed open, the crowd rushing through.

Once

inside, the rioters'

raw panic that they would be turned

away empty-handed subsided. The ladies straightened their skirts and examined their broken heels. The men brushed off their jackets. A line formed as if for a Safeway checkout counter. They were once again middle As

is

common

class

in

and civihzed.

many

of the ofl-rich countries, the Iraqi govern-

"IRAQIS WILL PAY THE PRICE" ment

is

1

IV

a major employer, once in a positioifto pay generous stipends

to civil servants, doctors,

backbone of the middle adequate

salaries

and university professors who formed the

class.

Now, with rampant

were being reduced,

inflation, their

once

in real terms, to a pittance.

Mohammed Jawad*, a handsome, well-built man, was a professor of engineering at Baghdad University, where he had taught for twenty-five years.

He had

a pleasant house with a shaded garden in

an affluent suburb and he drove a late-model white Subaru. Hala, his wife,

was a talented decorator. Eighteen months

sion of Kuwait

reduced by

and the

after the inva-

had been

disasters that followed, his salary

inflation to the equivalent of five dollars a

month.

He

expected that his pension would amount to seventy- five cents.

Jawad had nearly escaped.

many when Saddam invaded back

to see a student

sanctions

had just been offered a job

Kuwait," he recalls sadly. "But

through the

final stages

made

it

to resign

Ger-

I

came The

after the

impossible for ordinary Iraqis to travel.

was trapped here and haven't been able

wanted

in

of his Ph.D."

imposed by the United Nations on Iraq four days

invasion of Kuwait "I

"I

to get out since."

He

from the university and find work elsewhere, but

the Iraqi government had forbidden anybody to leave government service. In the

meantime, he was able to supplement

worthless salary with

some consulting work

for private

his nearly

companies

rebuilding bridges and offices hit by allied bombs. In that after the

first

year

Gulf War, he had hopes that both sanctions and Saddam

Hussein would speedily come to an end. Talk against the regime

among his

friends

though very

was

active,

fairly

open. At that time, the security services,

had more serious foes

to

pursue than academics,

whose opposition they knew would never get beyond words. Twelve months after the war, the Jawads threw a dinner party

for

a group of close and trusted friends. Hala produced an exiguous

composed of chickpeas, yogurt, and canned American ham. The ham had been part of the rehef supplies airlifted by the casserole

United States the previous year to Kurds starving on the mountains of the Turkish border after fleeing the counterattack that had

lowed the *Not

uprising.

his real

name.

fol-

Being Muslims, explained the hostess, "Kurds

OUT OF THE ASHES ham. Only the Christians and secular nonbelievers

don't eat do.

like us

They dropped this on the Kurds and we get it now in tlie market." The talk around the table dwelled on the catastrophes of the previ-

ous year and the repeatedly expressed belief that sanctions, in place since six

months before the war, had to end soon:

months now. They cannot go on much

"It

has been eighteen

longer." Sanctions, as several of

the guests noted, were reinforcing the regime s line that the war had

not been about the liberation of Kuwait but had been a direct attack on Iraq and folio, a

its

people. Soon

it

was time

to switch

on the TV to watch Port-

hugely popular series on the war narrated by an anchorman

who modeled his

style

on

that of Alistair Cooke. Subversive

about "him" died away as the images, pirated by state

murmurs

TV from foreign

bombing campaign flickered across the the Jawad living room repeated the anchor-

broadcasts, of the six-week screen.

The audience

in

man's solemnly intoned

statistics:

"Four

Idlos

of ordnance for each

Iraqi." It

was one of the Jawads'last dinner

Mohammed began meeting old friends crowded

in a

street in

longer entertaining at police was

becoming

parties. at a

Not long afterward,

schwarma sandwich bar

North Baghdad. His stated reason

home was

security.

The

for

no

attitude of the secret

harsher. "You cannot imagine the fear in the

hearts of the people," he explained. But there was a second unstated

reason for

why he now took

guests to a cheap cafe.

He had become

too poor to dispense hospitality. Pathetic signs of growing middle-class poverty were

more

evident. In the

Souq

al-Sarrai, in a yellow-brick

becoming

passageway off

al-Rashid Street in the center of Baghdad, a book market had

appeared where shoppers could buy Dostoyevsky or a copy of Plutarch's Lives in English for the equivalent of fifteen cents. Iraqi intellectuals

were

selling their books, sitting

heap of old volumes. Often the

been bought

in the

flyleaf

on the sidewalk beside a

of the book showed that

it

had

1930s by some eager Iraqi student in Britain,

where so many of them had been educated.

The rity.

Iraqi

Many

middle classes were plunged into

lives

of deep insecu-

of them had survived the political turmoil of the previous

thirty years surprisingly well.

They were conscious and proud of the

intellectual history of Iraq, stretching back to Babylon

and Ur, but

"IRAQIS WILL PAY THEPRICE" by the early 1990s, they were desperate nous development. The existence of this secular group

tf)

escape.

It

was an omi-

large, highly educated,

had helped propel Iraq out of the third world,

tuting a resource hardly less valuable than the

contributing

119

more

oil fields,

and

consti-

certainly

to the country's underlying strength than Sad-

dam's vainglorious military projects.

Mohammed Jawad applied to in the U.S.

and

now even

but

Britain,

dozens of universities and colleges

where he had once been a welcome

visitor,

the mechanics of sending a letter of application

through Jordan was complicated. His efforts were, in any case, without success.

The

fear

and loathing that Saddam had evoked

in the

West by his brutality, heavily publicized since the invasion of Kuwait, was being indiscriminately applied to his hapless people. It gradually dawned on Jawad that every Iraqi was regarded as a pariah by the outside world. Other

Iraqi academics

were

willing to take

any opportunity, how-

ever humiliating, to get out. Four years after the war, Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, expelled Palestinians

Libya for decades cials.

as teachers, accountants,

His motive, never entirely

number of

Palestinian refugees

clear,

Muammar

who had worked in

and low-ranking

was apparently

—and underline

to

add

offi-

to the

to the world that

the Oslo Accord, between Israel and the Palestinians, was doing

nothing to return them to their homes.

but

it

left

Libya short of teachers.

A

It

was an ineffectual gesture,

Libyan mission came to Iraq to

recruit Iraqi replacements for the Palestinians.

among

News

of its presence

Most of the jobs were at a lowly level, teaching children to read and write. But outside the Libyan embassy, in the Mansour district, there was a near riot as Iraqi acaspread

Iraqi intellectuals.

demics clustered around the

gate.

Dressed

in

suits

dresses, they pressed against the railings, clutching

several languages to prove they held Ph.D.s or

and smart

documents

were

in

multilingual.

Jawad was among those who applied, but without success. The professor had at least by that time finally freed himself from his university job.

He had

succeeded only through a complicated

process of fraud and bribery. "I tried to resign for two years," he

explained

later. "All

the professors were trying to leave. Eventually

bribed a doctor to say

I

had a serious heart condition. Even

so, I

I

had

aUTOFTHEASHES

12D to

spend two weeks

didn't need.

showing

I

was

really

university career:

He

ill."

"What

a

laughed sourly

way to

Middle East

in the

where they gave me medicine I end of my bed

fabricated charts at the

which before and long

Iraq,

noteworthy service,

in the hospital,

They even hung

at the

way he ended

Saddam took power, had been

after

for the rigorous honesty of

was becoming a corrupt society

as officials extracted

Radi, the leading Iraqi ceramicist,

aftermath, records the

and a bucket of yogurt Raging

for the

UN

renewal of the license on a

car.

to the

were manufacturing currency too.

agency, establishing itself in Baghdad, noticed that the its

be sent from Jordan

Iraqi staff asked

dad was an expensive color photocopier. to

al-

five dollars

was fueled by the government's resorting

inflation

piece of equipment

needed

meager

kept a diary of the war and

payment of the equivalent of

printing press for money, but others

One

who

its civil

Nuha

payments, even food, in exchange for routine services.

its

his

finish twenty-five years of service."

photocopy newly issued and

Officials

to

first

Bagh-

suspected that

it

was

easily forgeable twenty-five-

dinar notes, which were replacing the old Swiss-made currency. Iraqi

shopkeepers

all

under which they could

started using blue lights

detect the palm tree watermark on government-issue notes. In 1990,

one

Iraqi dinar was

worth $3.20. Five years

2,550 dinars. In Baghdad,

which

to take

Many

a single dollar bought plastic bags in

away weighty bundles of notes.

Iraqis

stopped using money

one person renting a room

for

two

that another family was so poor that

demanded

later,

money changers provided

for a house:

bills,

and

Nuha

al-Radi recorded

trays of eggs a year,

but she notes

could not afford the annual rent

it

one chicken.

American hundred-dollar

at aU.

All serious business

after 1996, only the

was done

new

in

hard-to-

forge issue, with a bigger picture of Benjamin Franklin on the front,

was acceptable. They were known

as

"phantoms" because

Iraqis

domed forehead and wispy white hair gave him a ghostly appearance. One Iraqi said: "A hundred dollars is worth so much to us these days that we can't afford to be taken in by a forgery."

thought Franklin's

With

society fraying at the edges,

life in

Baghdad and beyond was

becoming dangerous. Law and order had never been a problem, perhaps unsurprisingly. People routinely

left their

doors unlocked.

Now

conversations at gatherings like the one at the Jawad residence

"IRAQIS WILL PAY THE PRICE" dwelled increasingly on anecdotes about

The United Nations had Everybody in Baghdad had

tlie latest

IZl

crimes and their

victims.

four vehicles stolen, mostly at

point.

stories

of daring or ingenious

and the rudilessness of the thieves. In one case, a pious cooking pot

full

tliefts

woman gave

a

of dolma, or stuffed vegetables, to the guards at the

Abu Hanifa Mosque,

the most famous Sunni Muslim

The food was

of the oldest districts of Baghdad.

While the guards

reputedly for two

slept,

enormous

ancient carpets and even the

There were

gun-

mosque

in

one

heavily drugged.

days, thieves

removed

chandeliers.

other signs that people in

Baghdad were frightened

of robbers. Every Friday there was a dog market in the souq

al-

Ghalil, a stretch of empty ground beside the main road on the fringe

of the principal market

district.

In the years after the Gulf War,

guard dogs were in great demand. They came in all sizes, from dapper terriers to grim German shepherds. "Nimr is a clever dog," one

man told

us, pointing to the

tear a piece out of any

sees

somebody whom

pugnacious hound beside him. "He

enemy who he knows

gets near your

home. But

will

if

he

a friend of his owner, he will

is

never attack him." Nimr was on sale for the equivalent of eighteen dollars

and looked worth every

Not everyone was could put her

cent.

Hala Jawad found she work designing enormous floral bouwedding parties being thrown by the "new bilsuffering. Early in 1992,

artistic talents to

quets for the lavish lionaires,"

businessmen who were profiting hugely from smuggling

as well as

from the

work on bombed

lavish

government contracts

buildings,

ding parties, thrown

at

power

stations,

for reconstruction

and bridges. The wed-

the al-Rashid Hotel or other upmarket

venues, were in lurid contrast to the fraying and increasingly desperate society outside. In the vast hotel ballroom, rows of tables

groaned under plates of food, with a

fifth

of Johnnie Walker Black

Label (the Iraqi national drink) for every couple.

The

auction houses and antiques dealers provided a point of con-

nection between the

new

Baghdad Auction House,

rich

and the new poor

in the city.

tions generated a throng of

once comfortably off

professionals like Professor

Jawad

family heirlooms

—

At the

close to the city center, the weekly auc-

jostling to see

carpets, furniture, paintings

intellectuals

and

what treasured

—might

fetch from

OUT DF THE ASHES the black marketeers and senior Baathists at their elbow. Also

among

the bidders were dealers from Jordan, pouring into Baghdad

up the accumulated possessions of the dying middle class. Adding to the resentment the new poor felt toward the United

to snap

and

States

was the

its allies

supplemented by an

were highly paid

in

new rich had been a new colonial class, who

fact that the native

influx of

UN

officials,

quarters in the Canal Hotel in East Baghdad,

Jawad cial

at

UN head-

hard currency. At the heavily guarded

one point thought of applying for a job

where Professor

as a driver,

proudly pointed out to us the two glorious carpets on

floor,

each worth $1,500, which he bought for $40

Even between

that outrageous bargain might have fife

cent in the

and death

first

over the next

for Obstetrics

offi-

his office

in Basra.

made

the difference

for the seller. Real earnings fell

by 90 per-

year of sanctions, and then by another 40 percent

five years.

the government

an

fell

Monthly earnings

to five dollars a

for Iraqis

employed by

month. In the Alwiya Hospital

and Gynecology in Baghdad, there was no water avail-

able for washing mothers and their told to bring their

own mosquito

newborn

children. Patients

were

netting. In another hospital, a

team

of Western doctors observing the state of the Iraqi health service "witnessed a surgeon trying to operate with scissors that were too blunt to cut the patient's sldn."

means of securing

grain harvest in May, fields

Hunger

women were

left

banned food exports tion of medicine.

after the

The

invasion of Kuwait

to Iraq, as well as

all

For a short period, the

sanctions intro-

had

effectively

other goods, with the excepeffects of the blockade

masked by an inflow of goods looted from Kuwait. Then, thanks allied

bombing and the

came

to a halt.

Iraqi

behind.

decline did not follow an even pattern.

duced immediately

main

gleaning, walking through the

looking for stray grains of wheat

The

led to a return to ancient

food. Visitors noticed that after the

were

to the

rebellion that followed, the

economy basically

pump

water and sewage

There was no

electricity to

because the power stations had been bombed, no fuel for transportation because the refineries all

their lives. Hyperinflation

the

had

also

been hit. The

rebellions dislocated

administration in the Shiite and Kurdish areas as officials fled for

first six

weeks

after the

had

set in

—

prices rose

war and continued to

600 percent

rise.

in just

"IRAgiS WILL PAY THE PRICE" Given such a

few months

terrible situation,

who

on

.

.

.

Baghdad

"The recent

his return that

results.

preindustrial age."

first

Martti

in the

conflict has

some

Iraq has, for

that in the

The United Nations official middle of March 1991,

situation in cataclysmic terms. Ahtisaari,

wonder

and qualified observers reported the

after the war, sober

visited

it is little

1Z3

tirne to

Three months

stated

wrought near apocalyptic

come, been relegated

to a

later.

Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan,

UN

secretary general, toured the

a special envoy dispatched by the

country and reported that "the rapidly deteriorating food supply situation has brought the Iraqi people to the brink of a severe famine"

and predicted imminent "massive

starvation"

and spreading

disease.

In the event, although disease did inexorably spread through the population, there was no immediate massive starvation complete with

scenes familiar to television viewers from famines in Sudan, Ethiopia,

and Somalia.

were

Iraqis

at least able to survive

From

ment's system of rationing. all

Iraqis

were registered

acted as agents for the nal sum, seventeen

at

state.

thanks to the govern-

the introduction of sanctions in 1991,

one of

fifty

tliousand private shops that

Here the customer could buy,

pounds of wheat

flour,

for a

nomi-

three pounds of rice, half a

pound of cooking oil, three pounds of sugar, and just over three pounds of baby milk, where required, as well as two ounces of tea. There were also allowances for soap

in 1994, but

still

and washing powder. The

ration

provided about 53 percent of the

needed for an adult

Iraqi to stay alive.

was reduced

minimum food

A survey of households by a team

of Western specialists in 1996 "determined that the system

is

highly

equitable and appears to be one of the most efficient distribution sys-

tems operating haps

little

in the world."

(One consequence of this system, per-

noticed in Washington, was that dependence on rations from

the state actually strengthened the government's control over the people.)

The crowd

at

the gates of

St.

witliout their charity handout, they

Fatima's

Church would not

would merely be very hungry. For

Westerners accustomed to confronting third world poverty only

But

for a

out after two weeks,

it

Under the postwar

when

this

might not seem such a

mother whose monthly

ration of baby milk ran

emaciated corpses begin appearing on TV, dire situation.

starve

was quite

UN

terrible

enough.

sanctions regulations, Iraq was allowed to

import food and medicine, but these had to be paid for and, given the

aUTQFTHEASHES

124 embargo on

oil sales, it

seemed hard

ernment was finding the money

The

first

American banks, a

to freeze Iraqi financial assets in

part of these assets

had escaped firm

It

was known

that at least

no one knew how much.

seizure, but

in exile after the invasion, the

New York investigative

Iraqi gov-

response to the invasion of

in

followed by the rest of the coalition.

While

where the

to import food for the ration system.

move made by President Bush

Kuwait had been

move

to explain

government of Kuwait hired the

KroU Associates

to try

and

find

Saddam s

hidden treasure. The search was not a great success, although the firm did identify

some hidden

Iraqi holdings overseas, including a stake in

the French firm that publishes Elle magazine. Early in 1991, Kroll

Saddam might have as much as $5 billion squirreled The estimated $5 billion would not have been sufficient to meet the basic needs of the Iraqi people for very long, even if Saddam had reported that

away.

been disposed

to drain his entire

bank balance on

days of affluence, Iraq's food import

about $4

bill

their behalf. In the

alone had been running at

billion annually.

Part of the answer to the puzzle of the financing of food imports

could be found across the border, in

Amman. The

had become the entrepot for trade with

Iraq,

Jordanian capital

and the merchants of the

city,

many of them

cials

were turning up around the Middle East with gold ingots

exiled Iraqis,

were doing a roaring trade.

Iraqi offi-

for sale;

scrap metal and industrial machinery were being smuggled abroad by

the truckload; loot from Kuwait was also on a

good market

in

Iran.

Ironically,

depended on cooperation with the trolled the

more

offer, for

much

which there was

of the trade with Iran

rebellious Kurds, since they con-

border crossings favored by the smugglers. There were

direct routes to Iran farther south, but the bribes extracted there

army commanders were considered by the Amman traders to be outrageously high: "Fifty percent! Who can make a profit on that?" The Iranians paid for the goods in dollars, which then came by

local Iraqi

west to Jordan, addition,

Syria, Turkey,

some adventurous

and beyond to buy what was needed. In

speculators

were paying

dollars for con-

trolling stakes in Iraqi state corporations.

A

gathering in an out-of-the-way office in

the war provided a telling insight into the

Amman

way

enlisted the free market to help feed his people.

in

a year after

which Saddam

A young

Baghdadi

"IRAKIS WILL PAY THE PRICE" had arrived

trader in a leather jacket and jeans

to

125

do business with

the businessmen gathered in the office, an affluent and well-tailored

group who appeared to regard him

The Baghdad!, hke everyone

as a

else in the

somewhat

crass arriviste.

room, wore a Rolex and was

market for luxury goods. However, he announced that

in the

his

"conscience" impelled him also to buy sugar for donation to the gov-

ernment's ration

effort.

Once he had departed, his stated motives for generosity came in for some scornful commentary. "Bullshit," said one of the locals present.

"It's

not his conscience

was an

fingernails." This

"Iraqi

that's

making him buy

sugar,

his

it's

allusion to the routine administration of the

manicure" in the regime's torture chambers, involving the

extraction of fingernails

and often

toenails as well. In other words,

the leather-jacketed trader was under duress to import a basic com-

modity

like

activities.

sugar in exchange for leave to pursue his

Sometimes, more than fingernails were

more

profitable

at risk.

In July

1992, forty-two merchants were summarily executed in front of their shops in the

market

of Baghdad for "profiteering."

district

Iraq had a further resource in

neglected during the years of the ier to

from

own

its

oil

had been seemed far eas-

agriculture. This

boom,

since

it

import rice from California or beef from Ireland or wheat

Australia. After the war, following

flooded into the

decades in which Iraqis had

from the countryside, the flow was suddenly

cities

the other way. Perhaps a third of the Iraqi population lived in the greater

Baghdad

countryside and

area.

still

But many were recent immigrants from the

had

finks

desert the big city and go

Mesopotamian their ancestors

Munam

plain

were

villages.

Now they began to

home. Suddenly the

fields

of people again working

full

of the

much

as

had done before mechanization. Khalid Abdul

Rashid, the agriculture minister, explained: "Because of the

lack of machinery,

where we used

we do more

to use two."

fare estimated that nearly

engaged

with their

in agriculture in

things manually, using eight people

The

Ministry of Labor and Social Wel-

40 percent of the

Iraqi population

was

some way, three times the number before

the invasion of Kuwait.

The government was

careful to

make

sure that agriculture was

worth the farmers' while, steadily paying them the equivalent of

OUT OF THE ASHES about a hundred dollars a ton for their grain despite the collapse of

more than they had made money. "They come

the local currency. That was forty dollars a ton

received before the war. Big landowners in

here and buy mirrors and chandeliers," said one antiques dealer

of the newly rich agriculturists. With the traditional distaste of

Baghdadis for Iraqis

have very bad

who

live in

the countryside, she added: "They

taste."

As the government displayed unexpected resourcefulness viating the food crisis, so too did cles in repairing the

plants.

The

it

in alle-

appear to have performed mira-

bomb damage

power Mudhad," or

to vital systems like the

"Hujoum

reconstruction effort, billed as

al

"the Counterattack," was a crash program initiated within weeks of

the end of the war. trained technocrat repairing the after

he

set to

Its effective

named Saad

moving

spirit

al-Zubaidi.

damage without importing

was a brisk

He was

parts

work, he rattled off cherished

and

British-

given the task of expertise.

statistics

on

A year

his achieve-

ments, wrought with a "blank check" and a ministry staff of twentyeight thousand people

—"We reinvented the suspension bridge."

As the house Zubaidi upscale district of

built for himself on a palm-lined street in the

Mansour attested, the rewards

counterattack were considerable.

dump

for the heroes of the

Anyone lucky enough

to

own

a

truck could receive a thousand dinars (roughly five times the

average monthly wage in that period) a day. Rooting in his drinks cabinet for a bottle of Glenfiddich ("No, no. Black Label

enough"), Zubaidi talked of the pride he

felt

that Iraqis

not good

were rebuild-

own what before they had depended on others to provide.

ing on their

"More than ninety percent of the major bridges were companies. The telephone exchanges, die power exporting countries had a similar disease.

on

is

foreigners. It

was easier to send a

built

by foreign

stations. All oil-

They were totally dependent Japan when you needed

telex to

something." Zubaidi, as a favored and richly compensated servant of the

regime, might have been expected to talk like

this,

but pride in the

reconstruction effort ran across the pofitical spectrum.

"We

did

it

by

that fifty bridges

Jawad when the government had been rebuilt.

The achievements of the

counterattack indeed appeared impres-

ourselves!"

announced

exclaimed

Professor

"IRAQIS WILL PAY THE PRICE" sive.

The Jumhuriya Bridge

that linked the center of

127

Baghdad

the Tigris, smashed by allied bombs, was rebuilt within a year. all

across

By May,

known as govemorates, were reconnected to the The huge power station at al-Dohra in South

Iraqi provinces,

national electricity grid.

Baghdad, which supplied the bulk of Baghdad's power, had been put back in working order by cannibalizing parts from other power plants.

One of its four tall chimneys, brought down by allied bombs, had been and painted

rebuilt

power after

in the Iraqi national colors. Al-Hartha, the

had been reduced

station for Basra,

no

later, it

less

was

Once

again, miraculously,

producing power.

the electricity was flowing again, the situation appeared to

brighten. Within four

months of the end of the war, Iraq was generat-

The urgency of the

foreigners

it

had produced the previous

were working, so most

factories

sumers.

to a pile of tortured metal

than thirteen alHed raids during the war. Just over a year

ing 40 percent of the electricity

Few

main

had been

first,

electrical

power went

year.

to con-

doom-laden reports from concerned

partly inspired

by the

fact that the

wartime short-

age of gas had brought the country's food transportation system to a halt.

They thought the

halt

was permanent. But wdth power, the

repaired refineries (most of which had escaped total destruction

because one farsighted

official

had ordered them drained of

before the bombing) could produce

almost for free.

Now

fuel.

Gas was

food could be trucked into the

countryside and Jordan.

Subaru to work, even

oil just

available again, cities

from the

Mohammed Jawad could once more take the

if his tires

were bald and almost impossible

to

replace.

When officials

the

power was

stiU

almost totally out, aid workers and local

had predicted plague because sewage could not be pumped.

Just after the intifada, Khalid

Baghdad, told

us:

Abdul

Monem

"An epidemic could

Rashid, the

easily kill fifty

mayor of

thousand

in

Baghdad, if we cannot control the sewage." That threat retreated when it became possible to at least pump sewage into the river. The government was able to halt deterioration in other areas as well,

though sometimes by savage means. Three years after the war,

in response to the rising crime wave, the Revolution

Command

Council decreed that anybody convicted of robbery or car theft

would have

their right

hand amputated

at

the wrist. If they repeated

— DUTDFTHEASHES

IZa

the offense, they would lose their

was

to

knew

left foot. Iraqis

be taken seriously because on the day

the decree

was published,

it

Babel, the newspaper founded and controlled by Uday, the son of

Saddam Hussein, said that failure to implement it would be damaging. The paper cited the failure to implement an earher decree on the execution of the madams of brothels as an example of unpardonable laxness. In June 1994,

Baghdad radio began routinely reporting

court sentences such as the amputation of the hands of two people

convicted of stealing carpets from a

mosque

in

Baquba, northeast of

Baghdad, and a similar dismemberment for the television

from a

relative,

sentences

all

handed down

Such punishments were, of course, penalties of Islamic law, but

and

it

woman who

in line

in

one

stole a

day.

with the traditional

was a novel direction

for Iraq. Before

after the Baathists took power, Iraq, at least in the big cities,

had

always been a refreshingly secular society. Visitors from the bleak envi-

ronment of Saudi Arabia noted with

relief that

compulsion to conceal themselves under

women were under no

veils

and

scarves. Indeed,

women were encouraged to pursue careers; in the first stages of reconstruction,

many of the bustling building sites appeared to be under the

direction of startlingly attractive lady engineers, yellow hard hats

perched on top of their flowing

and consumed the

tresses.

in staggering quantities

Alcohol was freely available

by those who could afford

it

minimum order for a scotch in the Baghdad nightclub district near

the U.S. embassy was a quarter bottle.

Within three years after the war, to change.

this

easygoing atmosphere began

The impulse came both from below and

above. As their

standard of living collapsed, the salaried classes in Baghdad increasingly took refuge in religion. Attendance at prayers in the venerable

mosques of the

moved

city soared.

to capitalize

on

it,

Saddam noted

the trend and shrewdly

as with his institution of

amputation

as a

response to crime, by increasingly casting his regime as "Islamic." The

government was

also astute in

banning the public sale of alcohol. Ordi-

nary Iraqis were deeply resentful of the fortunes being

made by black

marketeers with connections to the regime. This resentment was fueled by garish and public displays of newfound wealth by the billionaires.

The

modest pittance

lavish

for

weddings

at the al-Rashid,

Hala Jawad with her

floral

new

which generated a

bouquets, were one

"IRAQIS WILL PAY THE PRICE"

129

much-noted example. Word of other extravagances quickly circulated

among

the population, as in the case of one suddenly wealthy entre-

preneur,

moved to

belly dancer,

who

by the nightclub performance of a talented

ecstasy

hurled a blank check at her

gained notoriety, the high

feet.

As the incident

command took notice. "Chemical Ali" Has-

san al-Majid denounced "denigrating nocturnal activities," and the

patron of dance was thrown in jail and fined the equivalent of twentyfive

thousand

More

dollars.

general measures followed.

By

1995, nightclubs and dis-

cotheques were closed. Restaurants were no longer allowed to serve alcohol, although Iraqis could

still

buy whisky,

arak,

and beer from

Christian-owned shops, which were specially licensed.

a measure

It is

of the fear with which the government was regarded that restaurant

owners did not dare break the new

meant

established Lebanese restaurant in pletely dry.

ened

rules,

even though

it

sometimes

their financial ruin. Restaurants like the al-Mudhif, a well-

Abu Nawwas

Street,

became com-

When a foreigner brought in a hip flask of whisky,

waiter, putting his wrists together as if

whispered: "Put In 1994,

it

away.

he were handcuffed,

Do you want me to go to jail?"

Saddam decided on

Islamic credentials.

a very concrete reaffirmation of his

He announced

whole world would soon be

built in

that the largest

Baghdad.

A

mosque

large site

able at Muthanna, the capital s old municipal airport that

wrecked by ture

allied aircraft

would be known

a fright-

avail-

had been

missiles in the war. The great Grand Saddam Mosque.

and

as the

was

in the

struc-

This was the first big building project in the country since the end of the frenzied reconstruction phase in 1992, and it was good news for hungry specialists like Professor Jawad. Although Saddam

appointed himself chief engineer, eleven design teams were set up,

and there was a job

for Professor

dome

was

to build a concrete

rise

from the center of an

world and fed by the

Tigris.

Jawad on one of them. The plan field. It would

the size of a football

artificial lake, in

On

the shape of the Arab

entering the mosque, the worshiper

would see an electronic picture of Saddam. Four massive towers

at

each corner of the lake would house an Islamic university. It

was an empty dream. Once upon a time, Iraq could have

fur-

nished the resources to build such a grandiose extravagance, but not

UT

OFTHE ASHES knew

now. Jawad and the other professionals

that the country simply

did not have the materials or the equipment for such a project and that

they could not be imported due to sanctions.

"We do

The most

basic require-

ments were

totally

pile drivers,

reinforcement bars, or additives for the cement," he said

at

out of reach.

the time. In the

mosque

first

not have high-tensile

steel,

year of construction, the only part of the

be completed was an elegant pavilion from which the chief

to

engineer could gaze on his barren

The Grand Saddam Mosque

site.

was, in a sense, a metaphor for the

On

hollowness of the whole "counterattack."

the

Iraq

surface,

appeared to have successfully surmounted the threat of plague and famine sincerely predicted by aid officials after the war. Power stations

had been brought back receded

some

as

to

life

and pools of

filth

on the

city streets

sewage once again flowed through the pipes,

The

areas.

ration system kept people

from

at least in

and

starving,

it

appeared that the economy of the country might be able to sputter along at a minimal level pending the day

when

sanctions

were

finally

Hfted.

However,

like

the plans for the great mosque, the reconstruction

had turned out

effort

to

be a chimera. The power

stations

had been

repaired with parts cannibalized from others, parts that could not be

replaced rebuilt,

when

they broke down.

Bombed

might have been

factories

New

but raw materials could not be imported to supply them.

had been planted, but diere were only scant amounts of vital

fields

pesticides,

fertilizers,

animal feed, and spare parts for irrigation

machinery.

A glance

at the Tigris indicated,

sick the country really was.

Khan, sacked Baghdad

changed color

twice.

When

both

literally

in 1258, Iraqis say the

On

the

first

and

figuratively,

day,

it

water in the river Tigris

turned red with the blood of

the thousands slaughtered by the Mongols; on the second, black because of the ink from the books

—^which Hulagu threw

In the 1990s, the Tigris changed color again.

not to river.

brown because raw sewage from mention effluent from the

The

partly revived

it

went

—from what were then the

greatest libraries in the world

au-lait

how

Hulagu, the grandson of Genghis

It

into the river.

was now a

rich cafe-

3.5 million people in Baghdad,

cities

upstream, was entering the

power system had made

it

possible to

pump

"IRAQIS WILL PAY THE PRICE" the sewage out of the sewers. Formerly

ft

131

would have gone

to the

highly up-to-date and efficient treatment plants before finally being

put in the

river.

But the plants were not and could not be repaired, so

the sewers emptied straight into the

river.

The treatment plants remained idle for various reasons, all of them man-made. They had originally ceased operation when the power stations were hit. Sewage had immediately begun backing up in the system, in some places causing the pipes under the city streets to rupture, leading, in turn, to the very noticeable pools of

sewage lapping

Restored power

ment

made

it

some

areas,

but meanwhile, some of the treat-

plants themselves

—had been

facility

complex

facilities

possible to

move sewage through

—including al-Rustamiya, the main Baghhit

by bombs. Treatment plants are highly

and, in any case, need constant maintenance and

Even without the need

repair.

at that time.

at least

the sewer system in

dad

doorways

at people's

to repair

bomb damage,

Iraq needed

a constant supply of spare parts from abroad, but the Iraqi govern-

ment could not or would not supply the hard currency needed to buy them. Even when the necessary parts were bought, they could not be imported until they had gone through time-consuming scrutiny from the sanctions committee.

There was, however, an additional problem. Sewage treatment plants rely not only

on machinery but

important being chlorine. Chlorine

is

also

also

on chemicals, the most

used

in the production of

chemical weapons. As a "dual use" item, therefore, chlorine was subject to tight restriction

by the sanctions committee. Imports were

effectively limited to supplies

duce some chlorine on

its

brought

in

own, but almost

by

UN ICE F.

all this

Iraq did pro-

supply was reserved

and even more vital plants diat treated drinking Even so, the amount available for the drinking-water treatment amounted at the best of times to only 70 percent of what was

for use in the separate

water. plants

needed.

When the treatment system failed, engineers simply pumped

untreated water through the system.

For

all

the euphoria of the "counterattack," therefore, the most

basic requirement of clean water

had not been met. Members of a

Harvard School of Public Health team who reported on the break-

down

of the water and sewage treatment system in late 1991 found

132

aUTDFTHEASHES

that almost nothing

had changed when they returned

"Water plants throughout Iraq are now operating ited capacity," they reported after the

second

trip,

at

1996.

in

extremely lim-

"and the sewage

system has virtually ceased to function."

The end results were visible in the children's wards of the hospitals. To cite just one statistic, every year the number of children who died before they reached their

first

birthday went up, from one in thirty the

year sanctions were imposed to one in eight seven years specialists

The

dirty

found

its

agreed that contaminated water was

water

brought gastroenteritis and cholera

tliat

httle victims easier to

weak. With malnutrition, the

immune system

salary buys just

its

train

weakened, particu-

is

were not getting

two chickens," explained

Viktor Wahlroos, the deputy coordinator for Iraq, in 1995.

The government

ration

meets to

become commonplace

main

would approach

in the

fifty

percent of people's needs

buy the other streets of

cars waiting for the traffic lights

when the

handles and wing mirrors let

UN relief operations in

"A quarter of the children are suffering from malnu-

and they don't have the money

only

in

to eat.

"An average monthly

trition.

Health

overcome because they were already

larly in children. Iraqis, especially their children,

enough

later.

killing the children.

dren under

five years

A

Begging had

Baghdad. Children

and hold on

car started to move.

go when given a small sum of money.

of 1995 showed

half."

door

They would

study of 2,120 chil-

of age in Baghdad carried out in the

how far their health had

to

summer

deteriorated since the war.

compared to 7 percent in The number of children classified as "stunted" had risen from 12 percent to 28 percent. The study's authors said such conditions

In 1995, 29 percent were underweight, 1991.

were comparable only to infamously poverty-stricken countries such as Mafi.

By the

late 1990s,

it

was becoming

difficult to

go anywhere in Iraq

without seeing signs of the disintegrating infrastructure. Diyala province, east of Baghdad,

is

potentially rich, with soil well-watered

by

the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris, flowing from the mountains

of Kurdistan. At

first sight,

the farmers in the village of al-Yaat on the

banks of the river did not look land,

grew their own

food,

like victims

of sanctions. They had good

and could take advantage of high prices

for

"IRAQIS WILL PAY THE PRICE"

133

their fruit. "It looks as if we are well off," saiS Buha'a Hussein al-Sayef,

one of the

he

largest fanners in the village, as

sat

on the balcony of his

spacious house overlooking a garden shaded by date and pomegranate trees.

He

admitted that people in the country were better off than

those in towns, but then he listed what the villagers lacked. Their small

They pumped

water-purification plant

had long ago ceased

contaminated

water into their homes. They also worried

irrigation

about their health and that of their

relatives.

to work.

Buha'a Hussein

intro-

duced his cousin Ahmed, a visibly ailing twenty-four-year-old, who had been operated on heart problems.

was unable

to

at the

Cromwell Hospital

He was meant to have

pay for

if it

came

were not

London

in

1985 for

it.

Because medicine was ing, Iraqis

in

further surgery, but the family

and hospitals deteriorat-

in short supply

to believe that almost

any disease might be curable

for the sanctions. In the Iraqi countryside, villagers

would often keep dusty

X

rays of sick relatives in case sanctions

ended one day and they could

find a cure.

Not

far

from Buha'a Hus-

Ahmed Suwaidan, who lived beside a canal, X ray. It showed the head of his five-year-old daughter Fatima, who was playing at his feet. He explained: "There is something wrong with her balance. She cannot stand up." He held sein's fruit groves, Ali

had

just

had such an

her upright for a

moment and then removed

immediately crumpled to the ground

On the woman in

his hands.

Fatima

at his feet.

banks of an irrigation canal not

far away, a lean-looking

named Nahay Mohammed was

dark peasant clothes

clambering down to get water with a steel bucket attached to a piece of rope. "It

is

bad water, of course," she

said. "It gives

you stomach

pains and hurts the kidneys, but the purified water supply was cut off in 1991." Heliathan Alwan, a farmer

from the same

he had recently

to see if they could restore

visited the nearest

the drinking water, but was told

it

town

village, said

was impossible.

Whatever sums might still be kept in reserve by Saddam for his and military purposes, it was clear that the resources

private

required to feed the country were running out. In 1994, food rations were cut back. In 1996, the merchants of Amman noticed that the gold ingots brought for sale by Iraqi government

officials

had

changed. Previously they had been of the standard shape and com-

— OUT QFTHE ASHES

134 position of ingots

made

for central banks.

indicated that the gold bars had been

Now,

close examination

made from melted-down wed-

ding rings and other jewelry.

The blockade on the economy was exported to Iraq had

legally

first

to

unrelenting. Every single item

be submitted

for approval to the

sanctions committee operating under the auspices of the Security

Council. This committee was rigorous in excluding even the most inoffensive items suspected of being of "dual use," with military applica-

Apart from the chlorine excluded because of

tions.

its

possible use in

manufacturing chemical weapons, items denied included spare parts for transporting troops —because they could be Bedand lead pencils—the graphite could have a nuclear

ambulances

useful for

application.

sheets were denied in one case, as were exercise books. Tires, which

could certainly be put to use by the

military,

goed, and Professor Jawad's Subaru spent

Even when

road.

process. Often

The

it

were absolutely embar-

more and more time

off the

indulgent, sanctions approval was a slow-moving

took a year for permission to import a spare part.

suffering caused

by sanctions did produce some

action on the part of those enforcing them. In the

summer

official

of 1991,

the Security Council offered an "oil-for-food" deal. As originally for-

mulated, Iraq would be allowed to export $1.6 billion worth of

every

six

trolled

by the United Nations and spent under

and medicine tee. It

oil

months. The money would be paid into an account con-

after approval of such items

appeared, and

may have been

designed, to

show generosity

victors,

though why the

fimited, given that the

United Nations

and humanitarian concern on the part of the

amount of money offered was

UN auspices on food

by the sanctions commit-

would control the spending of it, was never explained.

Even

so,

$1.6 billion

would have made a

difference.

Saddam,

however, obliged his enemies by rejecting the offer on the grounds that

its

strict

requirements for

infringed on Iraq's sovereignty.

same grounds

UN He

supervision of

oil

continued to reject

revenues it

on the

for the next four years. In 1995, the Security Council,

recognizing that the food situation in Iraq was growing worse,

adopted Resolution 986, an improvement on the earlier offer Iraq was

much

now

of that

in that

allowed to earn $1 billion every ninety days, though

money was

to

be diverted

as

compensation to Kuwait

"IRAQIS WILL PAY THE PRICE" and to pay the United Nations own

bills.

argument, Iraq continued to object before in

May

Citing the sovereignty

finally

accepting the deal

World Health Organization reported majority of the country's population has been on a

1996, not long after the

"The

that

135

vast

semi-starvation diet for years."

end of the

Oil began to flow at the first

year,

and

in

March 1997, the

shipment under the oil-for-food agreement, a load of chick peas

and white

from Turkey, arrived

flour

in Iraq.

Food became more

plentiful,

but by the end of the 1990s, after eight years of sanctions,

the Iraqi

economy could not be collapsing

and

restored by humanitarian aid. "The will take ten to

twenty years to

infrastructure

is

restore," said

Denis Hafliday, a fifty-seven-year-old

Appointed

UN

it

Irish

Quaker.

humanitarian coordinator for Iraq in August 1997,

he was responsible for spending the money now available under the

He

oil-for-food arrangement.

even with the money

tem was beyond old.

one example the

cited as

fact that,

now available, much of the electric power sys"We have generators that are twenty years

repair.

When we go to the

manufacturers [we find] they don't make the

spare parts anymore." His office estimated that $10 biflion was

needed

to restore Iraq's electrical system, but only

available

agreed upon between Iraq and the

By

UN in early 1998.

the end of the 1990s, the Iraqi

everywhere. Just as the

UN

February 1998 that Iraq could oil

every

$300 million was

even under the terms of an expanded oil-for-food program

six

was dying

economy was breaking down

Security Councfl was announcing in in future export $5.2 biflion

worth of

months, Hussein Ali Majhoul, an eight-month-old baby,

in the al-Khatin Hospital

from infectious diseases con-

tracted in the southern outskirts of Baghdad. Beside his

empty oxygen

bottle.

"He

bed was an

has meningitis," said Dr. Deraid Obousy,

the weary-looking director of the hospital, gently pressing the side

of Hussein's neck.

We

"He

is

already unconscious.

It is in

the hands of

more oxygen bottles in the hospital and we more money to hire a truck to pick up a new one from the factory that refills them on the other side of Baghdad." In the forecourt of the hospital, there were what from the distance God.

don't have any

don't have any

looked hke a

fleet

of trucks. But on closer inspection aU turned out to

be without wheels,

their axles resting

on

stones, or missing essential

aUTQFTHEASHES

136

engine parts. They had been progressively cannibalized over the previous eight years to try and keep one vehicle on the road. Dr. Obousy, forty-six but looking older, was gloomily reading an old

way to Baghdad where he had worked in

copy of the British Medical Journal that had found

He

despite sanctions.

said that in Britain,

hospitals for four years, "a place like this

They would

say

it is

rubbish.

It is

would

definitely

be closed.

and we

getting into the hot season

have no mosquito netting for the windows, or

enough sheets

its

for the beds." All this

air conditioners,

or even

was confirmed by a tour of the

The smell of disinfectant did not quite mask the stench of the lavatories. The patients were eating a meager meal of rice and chick-

wards.

pea soup.

baby Hussein Alis bedside were

Sitting beside

Nada, and her husband,

a factory worker,

Ali,

his mother,

who explained that their

family income was about 14,000 Iraqi dinars ($10) a month, which had to support both

"She

is

his office

did not

them and

their parents.

Nada was

pretty

and

slim.

obviously malnourished herself," explained the doctor. Later in

he spoke of the poverty of his

officially

patients.

He

admitted that he

earn more than $10 a month himself.

He had to have

a private cHnic to keep going, but this was producing less income

because

his patients

had progressively sold

had no money with which since

to

their possessions

pay him. His own

and now

TV and radio had long

been sold to buy food.

In the Canal Hotel, the

UN

aid headquarters, Denis Halliday

was

appalled by what he found in Iraq. His career had been spent in the

UN Development Program, trying to build up the resources of impoverished countries.

being ruined by

Now he was in charge of funneling aid to a country

UN sanctions. "You go to schools where there are no

desks," he said. "Kids

sit

on the

floor in

rooms

that are very hot in

sum-

mer and freezing in winter." Overall, HalHday thought that humanitarian aid

even

was "only Band- Aid

after the

stuff"

—a point reinforced by the

implementation of the oil-for-food agreement,

malnutrition remained unchanged. to

"lift

sanctions and

came down remarked the

UN"

to a

in

this

humane

were "undermining the moral

human

of

was

official, it

Early in his tenure, Halliday

"in contradiction of the

charter."

levels

said the only real solution

money." For

moral argument.

that sanctions

and

UN's own

pump

He

fact that

had

credibility of

rights provisions in the

"IRAQIS WILL PAY THE PRICE" Back in July 1991, when the notion

137

that the blockade of Iraq might

go on for years and years seemed incredible to anyone aware of conditions in the country, the relief worker

shocking observation that as

Doug

many as 175,000

because of the public health conditions. motion." Seven years

Broderick had

made

Iraqi children could die

He called it a "disaster in slow

prediction had been proved wrong.

later, his

the

Not

175,000 children had died, but upward of half a million. By the end of

1995 alone, according to an investigation by the United Nations Food

many as 576,000 Iraqi children had The World Health Organization, citing

and Agriculture Organization, died as a result of sanctions. figures

from

as

Ministry of Health, estimated that 90,000 Iraqis

Iraq's

were dying every year

in Iraq's public hospitals

above and beyond the

number who would have expired in a "normal" situation. The precise number was not exactly known because many Iraqis had stopped using the health care system.

Broderick had, however, been correct in calling

slow-motion

disaster.

tlie situation

a

At the end of the Gulf War, the Western public

had been moved to pity by reports of slaughter on the "road of death" leading north from Kuwait City.

and

cars fleeing

up the highway

allied warplanes; disquiet

An Iraqi convoy of hundreds of trucks to the

impel Bush to order a cease-fire. In

been comparatively

border had

fallen,

easy prey to

evoked by the "turkey shoot" had helped fact,

—

light

the casualties on the road had

perhaps four or

five

—

hundred

as

was the

from the fighting and bombing. The real slaughcame later, but because it happened in slow motion, without arrest-

entire Iraqi death toll ter

ing images of victims with protruding rib cages or heaps of corpses, the

impact in the West was minimal. Dry

statistics detailing

remorselessly

escalating infant mortaUty rates, or the percentage of underweight children, or even the death of little Hussein Ali

Majhoul

for

want of a

working truck to drive across town could not jump-start an international furor over the sanctions policy.

For every cited

statistic

on

infanticide, the enforcers of sanctions

could point to the latest evidence of Saddam's perfidy in concealing his

meager

stockpile of deadly weapons. In 1996,

CBS News'

60

Minutes broadcast a chilling exchange. Correspondent Lesley Stahl interviewed Madeleine Albright, then U.S.

ambassador to the

United Nations. Albright maintained that the sanctions had proved

DUT DF THE ASHES their worth because Saddam had made more admissions about his weapons programs and because he had recognized the indepen-

dence of Kuwait (which he did

"We have heard

more children than died

that's

know,

the price worth

think this

"I

price

is

is

in 1991, right after the war).

that half a miUion children have died. in

I

mean,

Hiroshima," said Stahl. "And, you

it?"

a very hard choice," replied Albright, "but the

—we think the price

worth

is

it."

Insofar as there was a debate, each side resorted to tendentious

moved by the plight of ordinary Iraqis derided the often fruidess efforts of Unscom inspectors to find Saddam s remaining cache of weapons. Unscom officials, on the other hand, sincerely arguments. Those

believed that the degree of suffering in Iraq was being deliberately

exaggerated by the government and that those

were dupes. As one inspector, remarked

Iraq,

to us,

who

raised the issue

a veteran of many inspection missions to

"Those people

who report all those dying babies

are very carefully steered to certain hospitals by the government."

was impossible

to convince

him that hospitals

like

It

the one in which Dr.

Obousy worked were not in short supply. For Washington, sanctions, as a former senior CIA official observed in early 1998, had been a "demonstrable success." By this he meant that they had kept Saddam too weak to reassert himself as a power in the region. By this yardstick, the policy had indeed justified itself. The leader of a country where over a quarter of the children were "stunted," class

and

where the once

flourishing

had been utterly ruined,

social level of Greece to that of the

of Mali was If,

bring

and highly educated middle

that overall

now obviously less

had sunk from the economic

barren sub-Saharan wasteland

of a threat.

however, the goal of the sanctions policy had been to actually

down Saddam,

respects, sanctions

it

had

The agony of ordinary have had

little

had

failed demonstrably. Indeed, in

some

actually strengthened the dictators position. Iraqis, fitfully

reported in the media,

may

resonance in the United States, but in the Arab world

Even those most disposed to fear and loathe Saddam were moved by the plight of their brethren. Prince Khahd bin Sultan, nephew of the king of Saudi Arabia and commander of the Arab forces in the Gulf War, called for an end to sanctions it

was

a different matter.

"IRAgiS WILL PAY THE PRICE"

139

on Iraq because "they have only reinforced President Saddam Hussein's

hold on power while starving [the] Iraqi people."

timent that was to cost the United States dearly, as Iraqis themselves implicitly

we

It

was a sen-

shall see.

confirmed the princes point by

unequivocally blaming the United States, rather than Saddam, for their troubles. Ali Jenabi, a highly educated economist

Professor Jawad, exclaimed angrily:

"Do you

think that Britain and

the U.S. are really afraid of our biological weapons? are not.

The

bathtub.

A

sort of things

he was moved by

to

his

they

make

in a

have, any country could

maniac

in

Saddam Hussein himself showed

Rhetoric aside,

Of course

Japan was able to make nerve keep Iraq weak and divide up its oil."

single religious

They just want

gas.

we

and friend of

little

people s plight. To him, as to those

sign that

who were

enforcing the sanctions, they were hostages, bargaining chips whose

very suffering was an asset. Thus he would arrange displays of dead children to ing

him

shame

his

enemies, as he did with Rolf Ekeus, into giv-

free rein in his drive to rebuild his power, perhaps with the

remnants of the weapons programs he had managed to keep hidden. But the dead children were

real.

The tragedy was

ing at the hostage taker, the United States and

were

that in aim-

remaining aUies

killing the hostages.

Meanwhile,

were immune

new

its

all

observers agreed,

to the

Saddam Hussein and his

family

deepening privation outside the gates of the

palaces that the leader set to building with whatever scarce

building materials were available. Secure in this family

was free

to

pursue

its

its

personal comforts,

own dark and bloody intrigues.

SIX

Uday and the Royal Family

It

was a cold night

rest of Iraq,

in

mid-February 1992. Across Baghdad and the

Saddam Hussein s subjects were sinking ever deeper The eerie yellow fog that had mingled with

into miserable privation.

smoke from the burning

oil

again swirling across the

refinery during the

war a year before was

over the pools of sewage lapping at

city,

doorways in the poverty-stricken southern suburb of Saddam over the gardens of once-affluent middle-class

villas in

City,

al-Mansour,

where householders contemplated which family heirloom they would next take

to the market, over the forecourt of the high-rise al-

Rashid Hotel and the just pulled

The

up

at the

fleet

of expensive sport

utility vehicles that

had

entrance to the lobby.

fog and the misery stopped at the doors of the hotel. Inside,

the National Restaurant, one of the most expensive establishments in

Baghdad, was having a

typically

busy evening. Seated amid the ornate

decor of casbah gold leaf and black lacquer, the families

were eating

their

fill

new

rich

and

their

of the lamb kebabs, thick steaks, and

UDAY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY grilled Tigris fish

rushed by busy waiters

141

onff) the crisp

white cloths of

the crowded tables. These customers were, for the most part, the

smugglers and profiteers for

whom

the shortages caused by sanctions

had provided boundless opportunity, now

months income or more entertainment.

Amid the

lavishing

carelessly

a

for an ordinary family on their evenings

rattle

came

of plates and roar of conversation

the sound of Mr. Abdullali, the house musician, plucking the strings of his santir.

A new party had

Suddenly, there was a commotion at the door. arrived, the occupants of the side.

Some

motorcade that had just drawn up out-

of them were dressed in the black leather jackets that

security agents of the regime

fanned out to various

had adopted

as their trademark.

These

comers of the spacious dining room, eying

Two

before them with the attentively suspicious gaze of bodyguards. of

them disappeared through the doors

their heels strolled a

all

into the kitchen. Close at

group of casually well-dressed men, most of

whom hung back with a suggestion of deference to the two youngest among them. These two were both

dark,

one with a

distinctive

designer stubble, the other bearing a softened version of the face that

adorned public posters the length and breadth of Iraq.

The new

brought a perceptible

arrivals

ground noise

in the

room.

directly at the party that

No one was

shift in

the level of back-

foolhardy enough to stare

was now heading

for a

comer

table next to

Mr. Abdullah, but everyone was conscious of their presence. Finally

someone

hissed, "It

is

with the stubble was Uday, at twenty-eight the Hussein.

He and his

head of the

brother, Qusay,

table, chatting relaxedly

were seating themselves

in Iraq

more

father, there

universally loathed

Everyone knew the

stories of his greed,

for public violence.

A few days

oned two guests road,"

around the clock." years before,

earher,

was

at that

Few

his

brutality,

and

taste

Mohammed Jawad had beck-

own currency

Iraqis

time

and feared than Uday.

extreme

into his garden to whisper that "just

Uday maintained

at the

with the rest of the company.

With the possible exception of his no individual

The young man eldest son of Saddam

the sons of the president!"

down

the

printing plant "working

had not heard of the occasion,

when an army officer had attempted

to

defend

six

his girl-

aUTaFTHEASHES

1-42

Udays advances

friend from

man dead on

in a discotlieque.

Uday had

shot the

the spot. Taxi drivers feared even to drive on the street

in front of his office.

To the untutored

eye,

might have seemed that Uday and com-

it

pany were merely a for

convivial and inoffensive group of friends out an evening meal. But within minutes of their arrival, the busy

room had been

The

Now

entirely transformed.

stretched around them,

some

still

restaurant s Iraqi patrons had

a sea of deserted tables

littered with half-eaten dishes.

abandoned

their dinners

and hur-

ried away, anxious to escape the lethally dangerous individual

had appeared

in their midst.

new

Mr. Abdullali struck up a

days of die Thousand and cigar.

One

Soon the party

tune.

was joining in a rousing chorus from,

Havana

who

lighting cigarettes

of Black Label and champagne

drank only from a

atmosphere gave

and

"The

Uday beating time with a large d',

refilling glasses

bustled up and

from the

bottles

Uday himself decanter of cognac he had brought widi him. The

little

the waiters' brows.

comer

as their host later explained,

Nights,"

Johnny, the suave Sudanese maitre

down the table

in the

lined the cloth.

tliat

hint of menace, save for the beads of sweat

on

one of the party stood up and made

his

By and

by,

way over to where two journalists from America (Leslie and Andrew Cockbum) were sitting, transfixed by the scene before them. He was carrying a bottle of champagne. After

ducing himself as "Alimed," he waved is

a lion in Iraq,"

filling their glasses

at the table

and

intro-

behind him. "There

announced the champagne bearer

in slightly slurred

tones, "and these are his cubs."

Saddam Hussein Iraqi leader has ever

in

tells

been heard

Uday has been

effect diat

As he

has always loved his cubs.

it,

Baghdad

is

an affectionate quip to the

a "political activist since

his wife, Sajida,

in 1964, bearing

18 that year.

to tell

The only joke the

would

visit

he was a baby."

him when he was

baby Uday, who had been

in prison

bom on June

They had married the year before when Saddam

returned in triumph from exile in Egypt as soon as the Baath

Part)'

overthrew and killed President Qassim. Sajida was the daughter of his uncle Khairallah Tulfah,

who brought him up, and their marriage

had been arranged when he was

five years old.

the newly married couple, in which

A rare photograph

Saddam

is

for

of

once clean-

UDAY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY

143

shaven and without his luxuriant mustaoke, reveals that the

Each has the same slightly pursed brown eyes that stare coldly at the camera.

cousins even look alike. large, deep-set

Sajida

was

visiting

her

new husband in jail because

first

lips

and

a year after the

wedding, the Baath Party was out of power again and Saddam, one of its

rising leaders,

as

he told

it

line of

notliing suspicious in this touching sign of paternal

diapers,

tlie

Saddam s story, would hand him the baby

The punch

was that Sajida

As Saddam cuddled

affection).

under

arrested.

in later years,

saw

(the guards

had been

his firstborn,

where comrades

he would

Baath Party,

in the

hand

a

slip

still

free,

had

hidden secret messages for their imprisoned colleague.

As Uday grew through childhood, the affectionate bond evidently persisted.

Family snapshots show father and son playing together on

the beach.

Nor was

this affection

bom

confined to Uday. Qusay,

1966, also appears in the beach games, and

Saddam

in

always presented

himself as a besotted and overtolerant father to his three daughters,

Raghad, Rina, and Hala. In his ily,

with the Iraqi

first

and only interview about

women's magazine Al-Mafa

in 1978,

his

fam-

Saddam

said:

I loved my daughters most, beginning witli When she was a pretty ten-year-old witli light brown hair, he

"When they were children, Raghad."

had a picture of himself taken mending the sleeve of his eldest daughter's

flowery pink dress with a needle and thread.

By

the time he gave that interview,

Saddam was on

the brink of

supreme power, which he achieved the following year with the

elimi-

nation of his rivals in the leadership of the Baath Party.

Such

unchecked power had not been seen

in

Baghdad

since the days of the

medieval caliphs, and, as in the medieval kingdom, the

ruler's

extended family constituted a court, with princes, great nobles, and lesser lords.

Uday himself was

often referred to as "The Prince" by

Iraqis.

The higher

nobility

extended family, or

came from two branches of Saddam's

clan, the Bejat,

which

in turn

formed part of the

tribe. The first of these branches were his al-Majid nephews of his father, Hussein al-Majid, whom he never knew. They played a public and aggressive role in supervising the army and repressing the Kurds and the Shia. The second branch of

Albu Nasir cousins,

the family on which

Saddam

relied

were the Ibrahims

—

his three

,

OUT OF THE ASHES half-brothers, Barzan,

Watban, and Sabawi, sons of

his

mother,

Subha, by her second marriage to Ibrahim al-Hassan. They played a critical role in

porarily

the intelligence and security services.

eclipsed

following

Subha's

death in

Though tem-

1983,

they again

returned to prominence after the Gulf War.

For Saddam, the bonds forged by the blood

ties

widiin his

extended family were not close enough. To create even tighter

links

he resolved that the cousins be further united through matrimony. Marriage between

first

cousins

is

common

in Iraqi tribal society,

and

the beloved daughters Raghad and Rina were accordingly bestowed

on

their al-Majid cousins,

Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel, both

rising stars within the family in the 1980s.

Barzan married lUian, the

exceptionally good-looking daughter of Khairallah Tulfah, uncle.

Uday married

Saddams

Barzan's daughter Saja after a brief marriage to

the daughter of Izzat Ibraliim al-Dhouri, vice chairman of the Revolutionary

Command

Council and leader of the powerful Dhouri clan,

long aUied to Saddam.

As rebellion exploded 1991,

in the south

of Iraq and Kurdistan in early

Saddam looked first to two of the al-Majids, Ali Hassan alhis nephew Hussein Kamel. On March 5, he put Ali Has-

Majid and

san, fifty years old

and

until recently

of security as interior minister. like face

and

infections,

had

he was, above

all,

the family enforcer, though

other, well-qualified contenders.

was a reputation he had won

It

governor of Kuwait, in charge

diabetic with a menacing, rodent-

and a scraggly mustache who suffered from hypertension

and spinal this title

A

in Kurdistan.

NCO, he had presided over tlie

A former army driver

regime s greatest crime. In 1987,

he was appointed secretary general of the Baath Northern Bureau charge of suppressing the Kurds, Iraq

war

to rise in rebellion.

in

who had taken advantage of die Iran-

Over the next two

years,

he slaughtered,

using poison gas and execution squads, between 60,000 and 200,000

Kurds.

Much

of the region became entirely depopulated.

Kurds rebelled again

in 1991,

When

the

they captured Iraqi security archives,

including tapes of Ali Hassan addressing subordinates in his distinctive,

high-pitched, whiny voice as he exhorts

At one

moment he

is

them to further atrocities.

heard rhetorically responding to potential

of his execution of Kurdish men,

women, and

children in 1988.

critics

"Am

I

UDAY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY supposed to keep them shall

in

good shape?" be asks

145

rhetorically.

"No,

I

bury them with bulldozers."

In another tape he

is

heard

telling

Baath Party cadres to disre-

gard any international reaction to the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds:

"Who

is

going to say anything? The international

community? Fuck them." Soon after his appointment was part of an

as interior minister in 1991, Ali

Iraqi delegation that

met with Kurdish

Hassan

leaders.

appeared nervous. The Kurds said that by their calculations,

He

at least

182,000 Kurds had disappeared during his two years in charge of Kurdistan.

Ah Hassan sprang to his

feet

and

angrily shouted:

"What

exaggerated figure of a hundred and eighty-two thousand?

have been more than a hundred thousand."

is

this

couldn't

It

A video of him interrogat-

ing and beating Shia prisoners captured in the south in

1991(see Chapter One) showed diat he had not changed

liis

March

methods.

The second of the al-Majid cousins to whom Saddam turned to his power during the rebellions was Hussein Kamel, the

defend

thirty-seven-year-old

husband of

his

favorite

Kamel's earlier services to the regime had,

more

if

daughter,

anything,

Raghad.

been even

significant than those of his uncle Ali Hassan.

month of March 1991, with the regime tottering on the brink of destruction, Hussein Kamel had been in the thick of In the terrible

the fighting, leading the Iraqi armored columns in their assault on the holy city of Kerbala. At the end of the battle, he had into the badly shattered shrine-tomb of

century Shia martyr and called Hussein

and

I

saint,

Imam

shouting triumphantly:

have won."

Rumor

marched

Hussein, the seventh-

"We

are both

quickly circulated news of

in Iraq. The fact army boots when entering the shrine was cited as an example of his arrogance and contempt for the Islamic tradition to which 55 percent of Iraqis belong. Kamel himself later had doubts about the wisdom of his actions. When he was diagnosed as having a brain tumor in 1994, he believed it was because he had profaned the shrine. Returning from a successful

Hussein Kamel's defiance of the founder of Shiism

that

he did not even remove

his

Amman, Jordan, he diverted his ambulance so he could tomb of Imam Hussein to give thanks for sparing his life.

operation in

pray

at

the

Imam

Hussein was not the only target of Hussein Kamel's ruthless

aUTaFTHEASHES

146

arrogance. Professional

army

officers resented

him because of

his

rapid promotion and inexperience. In 1982, he was only a captain in

the army but was given the job of forming the elite Republican divisions to

moted

ment

spearhead the counterattack against

to heutenant general in 1988.

He showed

and put

Iran.

great energy in both jobs, as well as

to build an oil pipeline to the

supported, was defeated by a

rival

Red

Sea,

When

oil

a

which Hussein Kamel

scheme, backed by Barzan, Sad-

dam's brother, in Geneva, he launched an anticorruption drive.

deputy

pro-

charge of military procure-

in

extreme greed in seeking commissions on military contracts.

scheme

Guard

He was

The

minister and Nazir Auchi, a prominent Iraqi businessman,

both Linked to the successful bidders, were accused of paying bribes

and summarily executed. Like almost all of Saddams close relatives, Kamel first made his mark running one of the security services. In his case, he helped

Amn

organize the

al-Khass, a special inner-security agency around

the president, founded after an attempt to assassinate

Saddam

in

the mid-eighties. But he befieved his chief claim to fame was to create the elite

RepubUcan Guards out of a

single brigade that

fered heavy casualties fighting the Iranians.

had

just six soldiers,"

he would

recall.

sisted of only twenty-four soldiers." It

was given the

right to co-opt

had

suf-

"One of the regiments

"The second regiment con-

was

his

proudest moment.

He

any officer he wanted out of the regular

army. Within a few years, he had built up the Republican Guard until

it

had thirty-seven brigades and was the main

strike force

of

the Iraqi army. In sharp contrast to Uday,

Kamel was

a puritan.

He

drank no

alcohol or even tea, an astonishing exercise of self-denial in Iraq,

where

social

and business

life is

of little glasses of sweet tea.

gave the impression of being attacks his

brittle

often aggressive or petulant but

under pressure. Strident

on others, he was wounded by

remarks

at the regional

leaders that five of later,

punctuated by regular consumption

He was

he resigned

in his

criticism of himself. In 1991,

Baath Party congress so angered other

them walked out of the meeting. A few days

as defense minister and,

when asked to

reconsider,

not only refused, but, as he later admitted, "did not go to the office for three months."

UDAY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY Hussein Kamel s authority,

like that

147

of others in the family

depended on access to Saddam. Barzan, the

circle,

Iraqi representative to the

United Nations in Geneva from 1988 to 1998, later claimed that

Kamel "threw

a ring around the president and prevented others from

He went on

getting to him."

to say that

Saddam

major way even though he was not competent

"relied

on him

as a military

in a

man, engi-

neer, or politician. In 1975, he was a driver in the president s motor-

him promotions he did not

cade, and later the president gave

He got into a position where he could see Kamel's

rise

deserve.

[the president] night or day."

had provoked the jealous rage of the Ibrahim branch

of the family since the early 1980s. Barzan, intelligent and articulate, in

appearance a slimmed-down version of Saddam, played a

critical role as security

he and

his

two brothers

Kamel and Raghad

is

Barzan was

that

fiercely resisted the marriage

in 1983,

rectly foresaw that this later,

chief in the Iraqi leader's rise to power. Both

still

when

would

dilute their

own

power.

A dozen years

fuming that Hussein Kamel's "only legitimacy

he married the president's daughter. Otherwise nobody

would have cared about him. within that clan there

He is

between

she was barely sixteen. They cor-

is

He now

an entire generation that supersedes him.

boy who knows no courtesy."

a rash, aggressive, and hard

To add

speaks about his clan, but

insult to injury,

Saddam Kamel, Hussein Kamel's younger Saddam Hussein's second daughter.

brother, later married Rina,

Saddam Kamel, an shadowed by

officer in the security service,

his sibling.

was always over-

among Iraqis was depicting Saddam Hus-

His chief claim to fame

his starring role in

The Long Days, the epic

sein's assassination

attempt on President Qassim.

Barzan's description of Hussein Kamel's lack of qualifications was accurate, but in the face of the uprisings,

Saddam probably

needed the straightforward energy and

brutality of his

felt

he

Majid

cousins. Meanwhile, however, his Ibrahim half-brothers

had recov-

ered some of the influence they had

They were

lost in

the eighties.

assigned to low-profile but crucial posts deahng with intelligence

and

security.

Control of this

field

had always been Saddam's preemi-

nent tool in building and maintaining years he

moved

his

power, and in the postwar

to tighten the family hold over these vital organs.

Sabawi, Saddam's youngest half-brother, was

made head of General

aUTOFTHEASHES

14-S

Security (al-Amn al-Amm). Qusay, of course, in his overall supervi-

more powerful

sory role of security overseer, had an even

November

In

Kamel

1991, Hussein

left

position.

the Defense Ministry,

which he had headed since the immediate aftermath of the war, and returned to military procurement. There was no sign of his losing influence. His defense post

was taken by Ali^Hassan al-Majid, whose

place at the Interior Ministry was in turn brother,

This

filled

Watban Ibrahim. game of musical chairs among Saddam's

been a recognition changing.

By

by the rulers

inner circle

half-

may have

that the nature of the threat to the regime

the late

summer

had withdrawn from Kurdistan.

was

of 1991, the army, after heavy losses, It

dug in along a fortified military line,

which snaked across the plain below the Kurdish mountains

like

an

Iraqi version of the

Maginot Line. Ground fighting had ceased every-

where

from occasional clashes with Shia guerrillas

in Iraq, apart

in the

reed beds of the soutliem marshes.

The

threat of

armed

insurrection died away, but Iraqis realized

that the siege of Iraq instituted

by the international community after

the invasion of Kuwait was not ending. Sanctions remained in place.

There were almost no increasing.

The

oil

exports. Political isolation

Soviet Union, Iraq's old

ally,

Jordan, a friendly neutral during the Gulf

means of access

to the outside world (as

was actually

collapsed in 1991.

War and

opposed

Iraq's

to the

one

Even legal

smuggling

routes across Kurdish-held territory), was beginning to reassess links

its

with Baghdad.

At home, there was the serious threat that the powerful Sunni tribes, a

days,

key component of Saddam's power base since the

might also be reassessing their

when Saddam oil

ruled an Iraq that

links

earliest

with the regime. In the days

was united, fabulously wealthy from

revenues, and a growing regional military power, they had been

happy

to support the

tribal alfiances.

man

They had

to

whom they were,

ralfied to

Saddam

in

any case, finked by

in die face

of the Shia and

Kurdish rebeUions that threatened Sunni control of the country.

Once

the rebels had been defeated, however, the costs to these

tribes of continuing rule

The United as

long as

States

by Saddam began

had made

it

to

outweigh the benefits.

clear that sanctions

Saddam Hussein remained

would continue

in power. Sanctions

were

UDAY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY

149

rapidly impoverishing the mass of the population, including not only

the Shia, tus,

who were

almost entirely excluded from the ruling appara-

but also Sunni technocrats, Baath Party

cers. It

would have been surprising

this situation and,

if

there had been no reaction to

among

officers

hm tribes, who had traditionally supported centered around the northern

under Saddam s

with

rule,

positions in the military

two senior Juburi

many

and security

—

city

The

it.

from Sunni MusJuburis, for

exam-

of Mosul, had prospered

of their

air force officers

director of operations

members reaching high

services. Nevertheless, in 1993,

—the deputy commander and the There

^were arrested for attempting a coup.

was further unrest among senior tribes

offi-

indeed, in the next few years there were a series

of conspiracies against the regime

ple,

and army

officials,

from other important

officials

such as the al-Dhouris and the Dalaim. The danger for Saddam

came from cities like Ramadi, Mosul, and Samarra, which had supported him in 1991. In a 1992 speech, Saddam mocked "imperialists" for recruiting to their conspiracies

was that the

plotters

"treacherous and perfidious people in Tikrit."

He

lesser lords

who have

spent part of their

life

could no longer take for granted the loyalty of the

who had once

clustered around his throne. Those in

Washington who believed that there was a good chance that the Iraqi military

would oust Saddam

if

the United States could keep up

the pressure were not being wholly unreafistic. After

one

all,

signifi-

cant reason for government control having evaporated so quickly

during the northern uprising was the sudden defection of formerly loyal

Kurdish

by Saddam,

The

armed and organized

into the Jash militia

to prevent the Kurdish

example happening

tribes, well

to the rebels.

Iraqi leader

had

again elsewhere. While the regime had always

from the Sunni towns on the upper tribal links

were

tribal leaders

strong,

its

strength

and Euphrates, where

did everything to conciliate

around the country. Cars were given to Shia

sheikhs in the south, all

Tigris

now Saddam

drawn

who were

also invited

on

trips to

tribal

Baghdad with

expenses paid. In 1992, these provincial dignitaries could be seen

uneasily sampling the

modem conveniences

of the al-Rashid Hotel,

ascending and descending in the elevators as they strove to master the controls. Irreverent foreign joumafists

dubbed them

"the flying

OUT OF THE ASHES sheikhs." Prohibitions against the concentration of land holdings,

introduced after the 1958 revolution, were dropped. In 1992, Sad-

dam even

apologized to tribal chiefs in southern Iraq for past agrar-

The government paid high prices for agricultural products, making wealthy the many tribal leaders who owned land. Peopte in Baghdad began to notice that those who now filled the

ian reforms.

city's

restaurants

were increasingly

tional flowing dishdashes

tribal notables,

and parking

their shiny

wearing

new

tradi-

four-wheel-

drive vehicles outside.

The heightened leled

profile of these traditional groupings

was paral-

by the declining importance of the Baath Party organization,

which between the revolution of 1968 and the Gulf War had

ened tions.

grip over Iraqi civil society

its

by controlling

Faleh Jabber, formerly a leading

Communist

ful Iraqi

cited a telling

Day

tight-

organiza-

of the once power-

Party and an acute observer of Iraqi politics,

example of these two trends

"The telegrams of support sent National

member

all civic

in a perceptive essay.

to the President

on Army Day and

are no longer from trade unions, students' organiza-

tions, professional societies, political parties or

other

modem

social

groups," he wrote in 1994. "Nowadays they are signed by tribal sheikhs

whose

members

is

tribes are

given.

intended to forge

The

named and even

the

number of their

revival of old social classes

new social

Saddam might attempt

seems

to

abortive),

defend himself and

immediate

family.

to conciliate

and reward

his grassroots

Cousins such

he turned more and more to

as the

elty

was

in Iraq

whose reputation

as great as his

of

his

fearsome Ali Hassan al-Majid their worth, but, as the base

of the regime appeared increasingly insecure,

man

(all

he could never depend on them. Therefore,

his regime,

and Hussein Kamel had already proved the one

clearly

alliances, particularly in the south."

supporters but, as indicated by the periodic conspiracies

which proved

tribe

Saddam reached

for personal violence

for

and cru-

own: Uday, the young prince.

Everything about Uday was flamboyant. Other members of the ing famfly lived in the shadows, but

Uday was

to

be seen

in

rul-

Baghdad's

best hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs. In the early 1990s, his headquarters was a ten-story yellow building in East Baghdad, with medieval-style watchtowers for machine gunners on

its

outer walls,

UDAY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY that

housed

man.

It

tlie

Iraqi

151

Olympic Committee,*of which Uday was

was probably the only Olympic headquarters

its own prison. Uday was a physically

in tlie

chair-

world to

have

striking figure. His

enormous

staring

brown

eyes dominated his face and he usually had a five days' growth of

when he was thirteen, he wears and an enormous black bow tie. The impression

beard. In a photograph taken in 1977, a loud striped jacket

given

is

of somebody trying to assert his personality against almost

overwhelming odds. His schoolmates speak of him

up

for classes,

and even then

five

as rarely turning

bodyguards accompanied him to the

classroom. Nevertheless, he and his brodier, Qusay, also said to have

Uday even had an He spoke about this when he

flunked in school, both learned fluent English.

be a nuclear

early ambition to

scientist.

was sixteen and repeated the story of his thwarted hopes sation with Leslie

Cockbum in Baghdad in

1992.

in a conver-

He said he had travmy

eled to the United States in search of further education: "I did

SATs, everything.

I

did very well. Passed with high marks." But, he

claimed, his ambitions were thwarted by the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq

He

war.

said:

'Tou

see, I

wanted

to

do nuclear

time there was a problem with Iraqis doing diat." "I

wanted

Some

to

go to MIT," he recalled

studies, It

was a

and

at that

bitter blow.

sadly.

aspects of his early education were, at least by his

own

Saddam sent Sajida and the boys They stayed with General Hassan

account, unique. In the late 1970s, off for a family vacation in Spain.

al-Naquib, Iraqi

who

later

defected to the opposition but was then the

ambassador to Madrid. Al-Naquib had two sons of roughly the

same age

as the

Saddam youngsters and also Uday boasted

the four boys played together,

send them to the prisons pare them for "the

impress the

young daughter. As

would

to witness torture sessions, in order to pre-

ahead." In an apparent effort to

difficult tasks

little girl,

a

that his father

he threw

in the further detail that

they were

sometimes allowed to execute prisoners themselves. Given the general

ambience of the Saddam

family, this

may even have been

true,

and, in any case, Uday's choice of themes for playground braggadocio are in themselves illuminating.

in

There

is

certainly evidence that

1979 the boys were treated to an outing to the semipubHc execu-

tions of Baathist leaders

opposed

to their father.

Whether because

OUT OF THE ASHES of the childhood experiences or not,

Uday

always reUshed instilling

fear as well as displaying a taste for very public violence, especially

when drunk on whisky or cognac. An Iraqi who used to work for him remembers going with Uday to a nightclub. As he described the "Uday lined up a group of male gypsy singers onstage, told them to drop their trousers and sing while he fired his submachine gun just over their heads. After ten minutes, some began to urinate evening,

with

fear.

Then he

told

them

to get dressed, gave

all

them some

money, and told them to go home." At the Saddam University of Technology the Baathists,

Uday

usually called "Ustav Uday,"

Baath Party

at the

in

Baghdad, founded by

led the cosseted Ufe of a crown prince.

He

was

He joined the Mohammed Dubdub, the chairman

meaning Master Uday.

age of twelve.

of the National Union of Iraqi Students (known as bear-bear because his

his

to

name as written in Arabic sounds like the word for "bear"), became political tutor. When the Iran-Iraq war began in 1980, Uday used go to the

staff.

front.

He was

always accompanied by the Iraqi chief of

General Abdul Jabber Shanshal,

who walked respectfully behind Uday s life in danger, he bit, so Uday went through

him. While his father was careful not to put

wanted

to

show

that his son

flight training to learn to fly

was doing

his

an army helicopter.

In 1982, father and son, accompanied as usual by the dutiful chief

of staff, turned up near Basra. Wafiq al-Samarrai, then a rising star in military intelligence,

happened

to

be on the scene and witnessed the

performance put on by father and son for the edification of the troops.

There was heavy his firstborn to

fighting just to the east

and Saddam loudly ordered

go and attack the enemy.

begged Saddam not

to

send Uday on

Uday

got into his helicopter and

Later

it

turned out that he had

we hit

On

this

cue, General Shanshal

dangerous mission. "But

could see him

firing his missiles.

our troops," recalled al-Samarrai

with a laugh. "One person was injured. report saying: 'You should punish the

The

unit involved even sent a

pilot.' "

Only years

later did al-

Samarrai learn from Hussein Kamel that Saddam and Uday had

choreographed the whole event, including the safe distance

from the

Iranians, before they

had

firing left

of missiles

at a

Baghdad.

In the final years of the war, while cousins like Hussein

Kamel were

performing important functions such as superintending the Iraqi

UDAY AND THE RDYAL FAMILY nuclear weapons project, play a minor political role. tee in 1987

153

Saddam began ^rmitting his eldest son to Uday took over the Iraqi Olympic Commit-

and turned it into tlie Ministry of Youth (there was another,

who received a medal from Saddam for proposof his own ministry "in accordance with Baathi val-

real minister of youth

ing the abolition ues"). In the

coming years, Uday was

a base for involvement in

all

to use the

aspects of Iraqi

Olympic committee

He seemed to

life.

as

have

unlimited funds, employing any veteran officer who appHed for a job.

He

set

up and managed

jail.

Spectators could teU

who

football teams. Players

goals or prevent opposing sides

failed to score

from doing so were routinely sent to

who had been punished because

the player-

prisoners had their heads shaved by their jailers.

known

Uday's reputation as a brutal playboy was elite,

to the Iraqi

but even a society as used to violence as Iraq was shocked and

astonished to learn in

November 1988

he was

that

in prison for the

public murder, during a party on an island in the Tigris, of one of his father's closest aides.

The motive

for the killing

dam had married

was

as lurid as the

Sajida Tulfah in 1963, but

Hamed

Majida, die wife of

had

murder

itself.

Sad-

mistresses, such as

Youssef Hamadi, the minister of infor-

mation. But in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war,

Saddam

fell in

love

with Samira al-Shahbander, a beautiful ophthalmologist. They were secretly married

was not only

Her

brother,

friend

and produced a son,

his wife,

Adnan

Khairallah Tulfah,

and minister of defense. In her

her favorite

child.

The cause of her

arranging his father's

Kamel Hannah

Jajo,

Ali.

Sajida

was enraged. She

members of his clan. was Saddams boyhood

but related to important

illicit

who

liaison,

for years

fury, Sajida

grief,

the

sought out Uday,

man

responsible for

she said, was none other than

had been

practically a

member of

the family as Saddam's aide, bodyguard, and sometime food

On

October

18,

unaware of or oblivious

taster.

to the seething passions

he had aroused,

Umm

Jajo threw a party on an island in the Tigris called al-Khanazir (Mother of Pigs), not far from the presidential

palace on the west bank of the

river. It

was a grand occasion, with

Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of the Egyptian president,

as guest of

Uday was not invited. Considering this a slight, he decided to hold his own rival party next door. Only a low hedge separated the honor.

OUTaFTHEASHES

154

two venues. The exact

details of

what happened next come from

Latif Yahia, who, because he closely resembled

had been recruited cial events.

Uday s

as his

double the year before to stand in

As such he became,

social circle, a

Uday in appearance,

at least for a while, a

at offi-

member

of

dubious privilege.

According to Uday s double's account of the dramatic events of the

Uday was

evening,

make

the

first

looking for a confrontation but did not want to

move.

He told Adel Aide, his favorite singer,

not to play

too loudly and to merely provide background music. As the evening

wore

on,

Uday became very drunk, mixing straight whisky and cognac

at the buffet.

At about midnight, shots rang out from the other side of

the hedge. This was Jajo, in a typical Iraqi gesture, firing volleys into the air with his submachine gun.

Uday sent an

aide to

tell

him

He

to stop

too had been drinking heavily.

making so much

noise.

When the aide returned, he told Uday that Jajo not only refused to do anything about the noise but had sent back a message: "Kamel

Hannah

says

forced his

he obeys only the presidents orders." Enraged, Uday

way through the hedge.

All

evening he had been carrying a

battery-powered electric knife, called a Magic Wand, which he normally used for cutting his roses. As he drank, he had been nervously

on and off,

up

napkins, and, at one stage, even

switching

it

his cigars.

When he appeared at the second party, Jajo was standing on

a table,

still

slicing

fruit,

holding his gun in one hand and a spare clip of ammuni-

Uday shouted at him: "Get down." Jajo did so, but then repeated: "I obey only the commands of the president." Uday lashed out and hit him twice on the head with the electric tion in the other.

knife and, as he staggered back, hacked at his throat. Jajo lay

ground, trying to kicked

it

to

one side and shot him twice with

back through the hedge to

his

own party,

his pistol.

but

left

Some

of the

offi-

the party rang the palace and Saddam Hussein himself arrived

within a few minutes, wearing just trousers and a into shoes without in the

He then walked

immediately to lock

himself in a room in a nearby government building. cers at

on the

pick up the submachine gun he had dropped. Uday

any socks.

shirt, his feet

thrust

When an ambulance arrived, Saddam got

back with Jajo to take him to the Ibn Sina Hospital, but accord-

ing to Yahia the double, Jajo was already dead.

Uday had meanwhile swallowed

a bottle of sleeping

pills

and was

UDAY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY

155

taken to the same hospital. As his stomacfi was being

Saddam

arrived in the

and

Uday

hit

pumped

emergency room, pushed the doctors

in the face, shouting:

"Your blood

will flow

out,

aside,

hke

my

friends!"

Frantic at the possibility that son, Sajida turned to

was

at

Saddam might

actually

kill

their

none other than King Hussein of Jordan, who

the time apparently close enough to the Iraqi ruling house to

function as a family counselor. Calling the royal palace in

she shouted, "Uday has killed Jajo and

now Saddam wants

Amman, to shoot

Uday." Without explaining to anyone what had happened, the king

drove straight to the airport and flew to Baghdad. As he related later,

he and the

Iraqi ruling family spent the next several days "talk-

ing the whole thing over."

Whether because of the king's counseling, Sajida's pleadings, or Saddam s anger cooled. The killing was initially completely hushed up, with no word in the press until a month had passed. Then, on November 22, Saddam called pubhcly for the justice minister to investigate what had happened. He declared that Uday had killed Jajo unintentionally, adding that his son had been in prison for a month and had tried to kill himself simple paternal affection,

three times.

Saddam

to

A

government-orchestrated press campaign begged

show

looked into the

leniency.

affair

stay with his uncle

Ultimately, a three-man

and freed Uday, who then

left

commission

the country to

Barzan in Geneva. His behavior did not improve.

Detained by the Swiss police for carrying a concealed weapon, he

was asked

to leave Switzerland.

In Baghdad, the family row over

Saddam s

mistress

and the murder

on the "Mother of Pigs" island had a final, mysterious chapter. Khairallah Tulfah, the Iraqi defense minister, took his sister Sajida's side in the affair

him The

and there were rumors

his job. In fact, official story

he died

was

in

Baghdad

that his support

would

cost

in a helicopter crash the following year.

that the crash

was due

to a sandstorm, but his

father believed his son's death was too opportune

and that Saddam had

arranged for his murder by having explosive charges placed in the helicopter. Others suggest that for

once Saddam was innocent because

there was indeed a blinding sandstorm that day.

Even though Saddam brought the

late

defense minister's two

little

OUTDFTHEASHES

156 sons to live with his father,

him

had no

at the palace, Khairallah s entire family, as well as

difficulty in believing that

he had been

killed

on Sad-

dam s orders. (Saddam might have had an added incentive to get rid of army and the

his cousin, given the latter s popularity with the

had shown

as a

commander

in the

war with

Iran.) Yet

ability

he

they could not

escape from the court of the ruler they believed was their brothers murderer. "Abdul" (not his real name), a young Iraqi businessman

from an old family that moved abroad lot

of

Uday and

during

his set

They

felt that

way,

it

was

all

all

the

Baghdad at this Saddam responsible

hated Saddam," he

more macabre

ters half-brothers, Luai, Ma'an, Muhvar,

spend much invitation

Adnan

they indeed

that the late defense minis-

and Kahlan, were forced

to

his

their equally vicious characters.

When

Luai

he had kidnapped a teacher who had displeased him and

bodyguards to beat up the unfortunate educator. But even

in the ruling family, only

the law.

for

from the prince. Uday especially liked Luai, an affection that

in school,

ordered

recalls. If

"The

time.

of their time in Uday's company. There was no refusing an

may have been based on was

1958 revolution, saw a

visits to

whole Khairallah family did hold Khairallah s death.

after the

When Saddam

Uday and Qusay enjoyed total immunity from

found out what had happened, he summoned

Luai to a family gathering and broke his arm with a blow from a

stick

while a video camera recorded the administration of family justice.

"They are

all

animals," says

Abdul of these characters with

whom

he socialized for a time. Nevertheless, there was a pecking order in jungle.

Abdul noticed how terrified

all

of the younger

family were of cousin Uday, "especially Ma'an, slightly slow-witted.

room, Ma'an would

Uday

liked to tease him.

sit silent,

not daring to

this

members of the

who is large and fat and

When Uday was

in the

move." Uday had a high

turnover of friends, demanding their constant company and attention before dropping them after a few months. "Friends

who have been

discarded are so happy," remembers Abdul.

Abdul himself was conscious of the dangers of proximity to Uday, but the Iraqi businessman endured the relationship because his family hoped to regain extensive holdings in Iraq that had been nationahzed years before. Even

phone

calls to his Paris office

so,

he came

to

dread the constant

beseeching him to come to Baghdad

UDAY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY He

on the next plane.

Uday

as the

explains the basis of his relationship with

envy of a self-consciously parochial neophyte for the

sophisticated Westerner. I

think he looked

up

to

"He was

me

always lived in the West, and

was

far richer

matter.

157

than

He was

I

was

always very pohte and hospitable.

because I

was

—he had

always asking

grew up

I

rich," all

in

Europe,

I

had

he observes. "Of course, he

of Iraq. But that didn't seem to

my opinion

of things."

This reverence for Western taste and culture was coupled with a

own people. On one occasion in 1990, Abdul was driving with Uday in Baghdad when they passed two young boys, about ten years old, who were eating sunflower seeds and spitting out the shells. "He picked up the commensurate and

phone and

limitless disdain for his

called his guards in the car behind to go

and beat up

these boys because he thought they were spitting at him!

no idea what shits

Iraqis are,'"

he expostulated

Tou have

they drove on.

as

After his return from Switzerland, Uday's rehabilitation was swift.

He was

reelected as chairman of the Olympic committee from which

he had resigned after the murder of Jajo. a biography of his father.

Uday was

He wrote the introduction to

A few days before his father invaded Kuwait,

part of the Iraqi delegation

who went

to Jidda

on July 31,

1990, for a final disastrous meeting with the Kuwaitis. But his under-

standing of the world was

still

as parochial as ever.

Abdul was with him

on the day that the United Nations imposed sanctions on

Iraq, four

Uday asked him how long he thought the sancactually believed they would be in place for a long time, but to be on the safe side he said, "Maybe a month." Uday looked at him as if he were mad. "He said, 'You're joking two or days after the invasion.

tions

would

last.

Abdul

—

Do you

three days at the most.

them go on longer than rest of his family

that!'

really think the oil

You

companies wiU

let

see," explained Abdul, "he and the

thought that Iraq was the center of the world, that the

world could not Hve without Iraq and

its oil."

That assumption, possibly shared by Saddam himself, had proven catastrophically wrong. Eighteen months

were

still

in place as

later,

the sanctions

Uday, his brother, and his cronies sang and

talked at the National Restaurant in the al-Rashid Hotel. Perhaps

was the envious

interest of

Uday

in the

it

unreachable world of the

DUT DF THE ASHES West

prompted

that

an

Ahmed

his friend

to invite the

empty restaurant

nahsts Ungering in the

to

American jour-

meet the "cubs."

was

It

irresistible invitation.

Uday was very clearly the dominant figure. Qusay, dressed out of a J. Crew catalog, gave an impression of being the boy At the

at the

table,

dance with sweaty palms

who would rather be

dissecting rats at

home. Flushed with shyness, he spoke quietly about Mesopotamian culture, occasionally glancing furtively at his elder brother as if asking for approval.

much

Only two years younger than Uday, he

the baby boy, but a polite

word of praise from

his sibling.

brother indulgently.

"He

The

runs

still

appeared very

inquiry about what he did ehcited a

"Not such a baby now," laughed elder

all

the security services."

outside world was as yet barely aware of the rising

mild-mannered Qusay

in

power of

the regime's apparatus of repression,

although he was already incorporated into the family's personality cult.

One propaganda mural

of the time showed

paternal sheikh on horseback with his

by both

his sons,

responsibilities

Saddam

skill in

to

side

The younger

father.

administration as well

hard work. In the years to come,

would only grow,

as the

and flanked on each

hawk-eyed defenders of their

son had obviously inherited his father's as his habits of

rifle

his executive

encompass such

vital tasks as

playing the different Kurdish factions off against each other, direct-

ing the battle of wits with the

Unscom

guarding the personal security of his

inspectors, and, above

father.

Saddam, always a shrewd judge of managerial to grant

Uday any

this dinner,

all,

talent,

was never

similar official responsibility, but at the time of

the elder son had been permitted to launch a

new news-

It was a sign that Uday's power was expanding beyond the modest prerogatives of the Olympic committee.

paper called Babel. well

"Iraq's only

independent

daily," as its editor

was already a smashing success and the its

uninhibited attacks on government

proprietor excepted). voice of

Recently

Uday but it

handsome

It

also

because

it

just

because

was interesting and for readers to vote

minister, v^th the health minister

it,

Baghdad because of

officials (the father

was powerful not

had run a competition

proudly described

talk of

it

of the

was the

irreverent.

on the most

winning by a landsUde.

Gossip about ministers, denunciations of black market racketeers,

UDAY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY

159

exposes of shoddy work in the reconstruction of war damage

were there

Not long before the dinner

in Babel.

at

—

all

the al-Rashid,

the paper had revealed that the Jumhuriya Bridge across the Tigris, a cherished city landmark

bombed and

hastily rebuilt,

an opposition," remarked Professor Jawad

paper was a shrewd matized by war, frustrations.

A

Babel's offices Sitting

was buckling

"Our government provides us with everything, even

in the center.

initiative in furnishing

inflation,

But the crusading

sourly.

an outlet for Iraqis trau-

and a collapsing economy

hundred or so

citizens

to vent their

were turning up every day

at

on Palestine Road with complaints about officialdom.

on a chair down the

table

from Uday

in the restaurant,

chain-smoking and nursing a whisky, was Abbas Jenabi, Babels editorin-chief

Asked where he worked before Babel, he explained

had been a foreign correspondent to

Havana.

He had not enjoyed his

for the Iraqi

that

he

News Agency, posted

time in Cuba, he

said,

"because of

the sheer lack of personal freedom."

The

conversation turned to news leaking out of Washington about

CIA covert operations under way to

"get"

Saddam. The "cubs" joined

in the general hearty laughter at the notion, recently

Pentagon spokesman, that there were "cracks

promulgated by a

in the inner circle"

around Saddam, which could be exploited by giving greater support to the Kurdish and Shia opposition. "Look," said Uday, his enormous brown eyes narrowing, "the business about splitting us is nonsense."

He gestured with his cigar around the table, which at this stage was littered with bottles of whisky, saying: "I have two Shiites here.

Kurd who works ded

in

tandem.

for

"I

me." Jenabi, a Shiite from a powerful

I

have a

tribe,

nod-

have a big family," he said proudly. "There are two

million of us." This Shiite, a loyal adherent of the Sunni ruhng clique,

was a case study

in the shifting alliances of Iraqi politics.

stage of his career, he

Kurdish rebellions. Later, in 1998, Jenabi

fled Iraq, bearing vivid tales of the

No one

torture

"We

monstrous habits of

he had suffered

at this table

or sanctions.

earlier

had worked on a paper owned by the Barzani

family, perennial leaders of

Uday and the

At an

at his

his master,

hands.

appeared to have suffered

iU effects

from war

spent the war at His Excellency's [meaning Uday]

place in the country," remarked one of the party in a jovial aside.

"Drinking and playing cards and watching the cruise missiles going

DUTnFTHEASHES

16a

Now this man was doing well in "import-export" with A few years later, Saddam was to complain to Uday about the

overhead." Turkey.

company he kept. This was clearly evident that at the the al-Rashid, where everyone in the party was profiting some way from their connection with the First Family. Down from

seediness of the

evening in

Their Excellencies were two Armenians, one with an enormous gut

who was boisterously drunk, the other very thin and even drunker. The thin one was the Saddam family jeweler, who was doing well out of the travails of ordinary Iraqis forced to pawn their jewelry to buy ever more expensive was Saddam s

food. Haroot, his well-fed

tailor,

companion one place away,

lauded by the rest of the company

as a "philoso-

pher." As the subject of conversation turned to America, Haroot

pomaded silver hair and asked, "Did you know Howard Hughes? Well, you know who he was. You know the Armenian who works with him? Owns all the casinos?" When the answer was negative, he crowed with delight. "How come I know more about America than you do? Because I'm from the [Armenian]

passed a beefy hand over his

Mafia. If you ever

need any help, the Mafia can help you.

mused on happy days

in

Las Vegas. "What

is

the

name

I'll fix it."

He

of this guy, you

know, with the rings and the big heart? Liberace! Oh, he was such a

good man." Haroot turned

to Saddam's eldest.

"Do you know

Liber-

ace, Las Vegas?"

"No," said

Uday with

Given Uday's infamy,

a lazy stare, "only Engelbert Humperdinck." it

would have been hard

to forget,

even

in

the midst of such a surreal conversation, that this was extremely

dangerous company. Even his brother out. If a

and

associates,

so, his

demeanor, together with that of

remained

reminder of the true

state of affairs

the form of the young security officer nearly

polite

and courteous throughwas needed,

it

came

who came swaggering into

in

the

empty restaurant. Suddenly, he registered the identity of the comer table. Within seconds he had turned on his heel

diners at the

and bolted out the

door.

Uday was already using his newspapers to attack junior government Over the next few years, he would raise his sights to take on more formidable targets, ultimately clashing with senior members of ministers.

his

own

bles for

family.

more

But he was competing with other

than just political influence.

Iraqi poUtical nota-

For Uday, greed was just

as

UDAY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY

161

important a motivating factor as power Frcffn behind a cloud of cigar

smoke

at

upside to the unfortunate fact that

war and

up the theme that there was an Iraq's economy was devastated by

die head of the table, he took

sanctions.

"With

situation, there

all this

a lot of trade to be

is

I am doing some trade." He was being too modest. The newspaper was merely the flagship of a growing business empire. He also controlled Babel TV, as

done, so

well as Babel Transportation, Babel Hotels, and Babel cessing.

When

Iraq was exporting

oil,

members of the

Food Pro-

ruling clique

could make great fortunes by taking commissions on contracts

worth hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign companies.

Now the

government was poor, so Uday, Hussein Kamel, and the others were instead using their political and security muscle to acquire lies in

monopo-

importing consumer goods such as food and cigarettes as well

as the profitable trade in

smuggling

oil in

trucks across Kurdish-held

territory.

Abdul's experience of Uday's approach to business, which he sum-

marizes as

"No money

dov^Ti

and demand

fifty

percent," had

left

him

unimpressed. His period of greatest contact with Uday was in 1990, prior to the invasion of Kuwait, at a time icy was to

when

Iraqi

government pol-

open up the economy to private business. But even with the

backing of his powerful friend, Abdul failed to regain his family's for-

mer businesses. "We didn't succeed," he trial

project or undertaking

fell

explains, "because

any indus-

under the control of Hussein Kamel,

and Kamel wanted the business

for himself.

For a long time, even

Kamel in business." That had been before the war Following the disasters of 1991, as his father permitted him greater political rein, Uday used his newfound status to compete on more equal ground with the hitherto

Uday couldn't go up

against

unassailable Kamel,

who

naturally resented this intrusion. In raising

the profile of his eldest son,

within the ruling family.

It

Saddam was exacerbating

was a potentially

fatal

tensions

development.

Nonetheless, Uday's power steadily increased, as did the status of his targets.

By February 1994, Babel was

attacking his uncle Wat-

ban, interior minister at the time, for faihng to prevent a series of

ten "extremely successful" terrorist

over the previous two years

—twice

bombing as

many,

attacks in as

Baghdad

Babel malignly

PUTDFTHEASHES

162

pointed out, as had struck Baghdad during the entire eight years of the war with Iran. In

new

institution, "the Saddamists'

and army

them the

loans,

and the

right to benefits such as salary increases, special

soon had twenty-five thousand members, most of

in the army.

At the end of the

fifteen-thousand-strong miUtia

year, the

known

Saddam, or Saddam's Commandos, his

own

officials

carried special identity cards,

right to a place at a university regardless of age or

qualifications. It

them

Union." All high-ranking

Members

officers enrolled.

giving

cial

March 1994, Uday was appointed leader of a

security force, an area that

union spawned a spe-

as the Firqat Fida'iyyi

also led

by Uday. He now had

had previously been the preserve

The commandos, largely teenage toughs, often drove around Baghdad in pickup trucks with heavy machine guns in the backs, reminding visitors of the murderous militiamen of Lebanon of his brother.

and Somalia. In the spring of 1994,

Uday had assumed a further responsibility as

overseer of the entire Iraqi media.

moted

universal criticism of

From

this

command post, he

government executives

and incompetence and ignoring

tlie

pro-

for negligence

wisdom of "the comrade

leader."

In particular, he incited abuse against the hapless prime minister, a

Ahmed

Baath Party veteran named

Hussein (unrelated to the ruling

clan) for failing to prevent the further collapse of the currency.

The prime

minister was duly dismissed in

Hussein himself took over the

would now do something hope."

to "dispel darkness

The president/prime

impression of activism. sick "should

be

minister

May

his

diat ministers

in their ministries at 0:800.

1

Saddam that

he

and despair and create

went out of

He announced

1994, and

were informed

post. Iraqis

way

to give

who were

an not

want no other excuses."

when official punctuality made any difwas mirrored by the precipitate fall in decline economic The ference. the dinar, despite Saddam s more active role, from 140 to the dollar at Iraq was well past the stage

the beginning of 1994 to 700 to the dollar in December. Baghdad

looked

like

an enormous

flea

market

as

people sold off their household

goods. The already meager monthly rations were reduced. Uday meanwhile appeared to be going from strength to strength.

His profitable business relationships with smugglers, as well as ential figures in Kurdistan,

enhanced

influ-

his relative position in "trade,"

UDAY AND THE ROYAL FAMILY

1S3

while that of Hussein Kamel, so dominanf only a few years before,

appeared

to decline.

Uday's elevation

may have seemed

a shrewd

move

to

Saddam,

always a deft manipulator in internal Iraqi politics. But in using his

son to diminish other powerful

dam

members of the

ruling family, Sad-

ran the risk of tearing the ruling house, once notable for

unity, into fractious pieces.

The

iise

Uday made of

gaining his father s favor was soon to provoke the worst political sis

its

his victory in cri-

since the days of the uprising.

In the meantime, in the rugged northern mountains of Iraq and far across the sea in

Washington, D.C., potent enemies were pon-

dering fresh attacks on the entire edifice of Saddam's rule.

SEVEN Intrigue in

October Ongathered

10, 1994,

tlie

Mountains

Columbus Day,

a group of senior officials

White House Situation Room, the traditional urgent and secret discussions on affairs of national secuin the

venue rity.

for

few days before, the U.S. government had learned that

Just a

Saddam Hussein was moving troops toward the Kuwaiti Once again the Iraqi leader was demonstrating his ability the headlines, disturb the weekends of senior

hurried movements of troops,

The

last

aircraft,

On

and prompt

and warships.

moved toward Kuwait had been

time Saddam had

before the 1990 invasion.

officials,

border. to seize

that occasion,

just

George Bush had done

nothing. Bill Clinton was naturally determined to avoid committing

the same mistake, and so from the continental United States to the

Indian Ocean, American forces were on the move. celed a campaign trip to

New

The President can-

Mexico and addressed the American

people in martial tones. Saddam Hussein, Chnton declared, would not

be allowed

to "defy the will of the United States

and the international

community."

The meeting in the situation room was not concerned with the weU-publicized movements of U.S. forces, but convened to review progress on a secret effort to eliminate the problem of Saddam Hus-

INTRIGUE sein

once and for

all.

administration had

Back

THE MOUNTAINS

IN

in April

165

1991 (see Chapter Two), the Bush

embarked on a two-track

strategy toward Iraq:

Saddam would be hemmed in by sanctions while the CIA simultaneworked to bring him down. The CUnton administration had left

ously

the Bush approach essentially unchanged (apart from an offhand

remark by the President-elect, hurriedly renounced, normal relations with Saddam were tained as rigorously as ever

announced plans

to seek a

by the

Iraqi regime,

When

details

were main-

possible). Sanctions

1993, Vice

In

to the effect that

President Al Gore

United Nations investigation of war crimes

though nothing further was ever heard of the idea.

emerged of a scheme by elements of the

Iraqi security

gang of whisky smugglers,

to assassinate

service, in association with a

ex-president George

Bush during a

visit to

Kuwait

in 1993, Clinton

fired off twenty-three cruise missiles at Iraqi intelligence headquarters

in

Baghdad, one of which went astray and

leading female

killed Leilah Attar, Iraq's

artist.

In secret, Clinton reaffirmed Bush's directive to the

CIA

to

unseat Saddam. Back in 1991, the agency, casting around for possible

mechanisms

Ahmad

to

accomplish the

task,

had ended when

his Jordanian

spirit

in

services of

whose banking career

bank collapsed amid charges of fraud

and embezzlement. By the following

moving

had accepted the

Chalabi, the exiled Iraqi millionaire

year, Chalabi

had become the

an umbrella organization of opposition groups

called the Iraqi National Congress (INC), pledged to overthrow

Saddam and

institute

those involved in the

democracy

INC

(apart

funding came from the CIA. in the first

year alone

campaign directed

in Iraq.

to

most of

—over $23 million

Much of this money

—was invested

at

Unbeknownst

from Chalabi) the organization's

in

an

anti- Saddam

propaganda

audiences both inside and outside Iraq and

partly designed to deflect international concern over the suffering

caused by sanctions. This campaign was subcontracted to John Rendon, a Washington

PR

specialist

with excellent agency connections.

While the connection between the agency and the

INC was

a

closely held secret, the publicly expressed aims of the opposition coali-

tion

were perfectly respectable: a democratic Iraq with a government

that

would represent

all

races

and creeds. The founding members had

included individuals and groups from across the political spectrum of

DUTDFTHEASHES

166

the Iraqi opposition. There were explicitly Islamic elements like the

Mohammed Bahr al-Ulum

Shiite exile

as well as

remnants of the once

powerful Iraqi Communist Party, the Sunni ex-general and ambassador Hassan al-Naquib, and liberals

neer

who had

effort to

draw attention

who were

forces at their

affiliated

with the

however, had once been

and

largest

INC were the Kurdish

to this

members

in

in 1992,

Some,

Baathist rule.

good standing of the Baathist

most part Sunnis, had found a home

National Accord, or "al-Wifaq."

had spent the greater

Saddam and

regime before gravitating to the opposition.

INC

engi-

also the only organizations with significant military

Most of those who pledged support

the

civil

command.

part of their lives in opposition to

for the

The

to die slaughter at Halabja.

most important of the groups parties,

Kubba, the

like Laith

traveled around the United States in 1988 in a lonely

Many of this in a

group,

group called the Iraqi

The Accord had

but from the outset pursued

latter

its

affiliated itself

own

with

agenda.

Chalabi and his colleagues believed that the way to undermine

Saddam was from

below, by sapping the dictator's power from a base

in liberated Kurdistan

through such means as propaganda and the

encouragement of defections by

among the ical

officials

of the regime and desertions

army. As endorsed by the CIA, this was an essentially polit-

operation. So long as the

INC

confined

itself to

the role of demo-

cratic opposition to

disaffection

populace, the

Saddam and promoting paymasters were happy More

aggressive initiatives on

the part of the

INC were less warmly received in Washington.

Even labi

so,

among

the

despite the fact that he was on the agency's payroll, Cha-

was not shy about promoting

his

views and agenda. In

November

1993, he flew to Washington to unveil an ambitious plan to foment

mutinies in army units around Iraq, which would eventually spread to

Baghdad and topple Saddam. Addressing State Department, (a

and the Pentagon

officials

at the

from the CIA, the

Key Bridge

Marriott Hotel

favored watering hole of the intelligence community), he gave pre-

cise details of the

adventurous scheme and outlined the support he

would need from the United and waited

for a response.

The problem with

States to carry

it

out.

Then he

flew

home

There was none.

Chalabi's grand plan, so far as

Washington was

concerned, was precisely the question of American support.

Any Iraqi

INTRIGUE unit that defected en masse

THE MOUNTAINS

IN

would

16V

certainly evoke a violent response

from Saddam. However decayed and disaffected the bulk of the

army might

be,

he could

still

Iraqi

count on the comparatively well-armed

Republican Guard. Resisting the counterattack, therefore, would require help from the Pentagon in the form of air support. But the U.S. military was very dubious about involving itself in fighting in Iraq. "I

would go

to the

JCS

a military unit that

tify

[Joint Chiefs

of Staff] and

ready to mutiny,

is

will

say,

If I can iden-

you adopt

recalls

it?' "

one CIA official involved in the Iraq operation. "The answer was never no.

The answer was never yes.

It

was always We'll get back

Opposition to Chalabi's grand

initiative

to you.'

was not confined

U.S. military. According to Frank Anderson, then

to the

head of the Near

East Division (colloquially referred to at Langley as

NE)

of the

agency's covert operations directorate, he thought at the time that

the

INC

for

Saddam,

represented merely "the capability to be another problem in fact, a serious

problem," but nothing more. In their

makers yearned

hearts, the decision

for the simple solution, a palace

coup that would replace Saddam with a (hopefully) more benign and well-disposed strongman. Ever since President Bush had issued his finding in

May

1991, the agency had been attentively waiting for

a person or persons

who might mount such

a coup. In the

of 1994, hope began to burgeon in the breasts of

offi-

deliverance might be at hand.

cials that It

summer

some agency

was not an entirely

unrealistic proposition.

there had been a series of conspiracies against

from Sunni Muslim ditionally

tribes, like the

As we have seen,

Saddam by

officers

Juburi and the Dalaim, that tra-

supported the regime. All were detected and the conspira-

tors ruthlessly punished,

but

if

the agency could only

make

contact

with the right group in time, then a successful coup might be possible. Unfortunately,

almost the only points of access for the

internal Iraqi dissent

were through

exile groups,

CIA

to

themselves under

the unblinking scrutiny of Saddam's intelUgence services.

lyad Alawi, the leader of the Accord, was a charming and articulate individual

He had

who had

the

gift

of impressing intelligence

officials.

long nurtured close links with MI-6, British intelligence,

who cherished him falling in love

as

an old and valued agent. "The Brits are always

with people," recalls one

CIA

officer involved in the

aUTDFTHEASHES

16B

Iraq operation of his transatlantic colleagues. "They are romantic in

FBI

that way. Funnily enough, the

From

early in 1994 on, Alawi

are the same."

began a

series

of intense meetings

with his British friends in London and various vacation resorts on the south coast of England.

The news he reported from

his contacts in

Iraq appeared to hold out exciting prospects of unrest at senior levels in the Iraqi army.

locutors,

AH

that

was needed, he reminded

was support and, above

on the news

all,

to the "cousins" in the

urged the merits of the This, then,

INA to

his

eager inter-

money from outside. MI-6 passed CIA London station, who in turn

sympathetic ears back at Langley.

was the background

White

to the gathering at the

House on Columbus Day, 1994. The senior officials assembled in the room included Peter Tamoff, the undersecretary of state for political affairs; George Tenet, the National Security Council director situation

for intelligence affairs;

Madeleine Albright, U.S. ambassador to the

United Nations; and Admiral David Jeremiah, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

They had commissioned

what the agency was

really

this classified briefing to

accomplishing behind

hear

enemy lines.

Leading the CIA delegation was the deputy director for Opera-

man

tions, the

in

charge of

all

CIA

covert actions,

graduate and ex-marine. Price was a ple.

Like

many officials who

torate in the 1980s,

man who

Ted

easily

rose to high rank in the operations direc-

—Arabic

and Chinese. Prices

China and he spoke fluent Mandarin.

No one

speciality

"quick but not wise."

He

was

was

disputed that he was

highly intelligent, though one former colleague describes

in

Yale

he was a graduate of what were called the "hard

language" programs

sights

A

Price.

impressed peo-

him

as

also intensely ambitious, having set his

on the coveted position of "DO" long before he was appointed

December

1993.

A former chief of another U.S. intelligence agency

recalls the short, sandy-haired Price as

being "very smart, as

much

a

politician as a professional." Given, therefore, the long-standing pref-

erence in the White House for a "silver bullet" coup by members of the Sunni

power

elite,

which would replace Saddam without

upsetting the Iraqi political order,

it

was natural

totally

for Price to tout the

CIA's potent contacts in such circles.

The centerpiece of the

briefing, as

planned by Price, was a chart

depicting the agency's network inside Saddam's regime. Tightly

INTRIGUE

THE MOUNTAINS

IN

packed with the names of

officials

from the

169

Iraqi mihtary, intelU-

gence, and other key components of the Iraqi ruUng apparatus, certainly

made

for a striking display.

depicted on the chart," recalls one tation, "it

looked

like

with the presen-

at

CIA

headquarters in Langley

that perhaps this tableau of Iraqi dissidence gave a far

greater impression of in fact, the case. "If

CIA

connections inside the country than was,

you say we have a direct communication from

so-and-so," recalls this

same

official, "that's

crossing the border with a note saying

and wants

"The way the names were

official familiar

he [Saddam] was surrounded."

However, there were those back

who thought

it

to bring

been generated

him down.'

in the

A lot

different

'My cousin

from someone

Ali hates

Saddam

of the names on the chart had

second way."

among man who had

Price was not the only important figure from the agency

those present.

By

his side

was Frank Anderson, the

been ordered by George Bush

to "create the conditions" for the

removal of Saddam Hussein nearly three and a half years before. Since the day that he scribbled "I don't like this" on Bush's directive,

Anderson's pessimism about the prospects for bringing

down by any kind

of covert action had not

to others involved in the operation,

he had paid

possible to the day-to-day details. "Frank

example,

I

Saddam

In fact, according

lifted.

as little attention as

would help out

if,

for

was having a problem with the State Department, but for

the most part he was far

more involved

peace deal that was happening

mer

subordinates.

Iraq

if

"He

he could help

in the Israeli-Palestinian

at that time," recalls

certainly never turned

up

at

one of

his for-

any briefings on

it."

The Columbus Day

briefing was, apparently, an exception. If

Price was determined to put on a big show, Anderson had every rea-

son to turn up. Relations between the two

Ever since the

arrest in

men were

not good.

February 1994 of Aldrich Ames, the

Russian spy in the heart of the Operations directorate,

James Woolsey had been under heavy pressure to

who had

failed to take note of the alcoholic

earnings from Russia. as

One

Moscow

of these

for betraying

officials

Ames

fire

as

CIA

senior officials

he flaunted

most of the agency's

was Ted Price who,

director

in his

head of counterintelligence, had been oblivious

his

spies in

former post

to the

mole

aUTDFTHEASHES

17D under

his nose. Price

remained

was not

fired

but merely reprimanded and

deputy director for Operations. Woolsey

as

decree that no one

who had

did, however,

ever been Ames's superior should be

given any sort of agency award or commendation.

Frank Anderson had never been

in contact with

old friend Milt Bearden had. Bearden was best

Ames, but

known

his

inside the

work in the Near East Division masterminding the shipment of huge quantities of weapons and money to the Afghan Mujalieddin for their war with the occupying Soviets in the 1980s. Following that triumph, Bearden had taken over the Soviet division, where Ames worked. Two weeks before the White House briefing on Iraq, Bearden had retired. Despite Woolsey s edict on awards, Anderson and another senior operations veteran and friend of Bearden, John MacGaffin, had agency for

his impressive

decided that their old comrade

arms should not be allowed to

dis-

appear into retirement without some small recognition of

his

in

Afghan triumphs. Anderson had therefore presented Bearden with a plaque from his colleagues. to Langley

Word of this

"transgression" sped back

and the receptive ears of Ted

Price,

who hastened

to

apprise Woolsey of what had happened.

Woolsey, a lawyer and a defense intellectual, rather hked derringdo, cloak-and-dagger types, but following Prices report he felt he

had

little

option other than punishing Anderson and MacGaffin by

demoting them. They denied him that option by

when Anderson his career

arrived at

the White House

quitting.

for the briefing,

Thus,

he knew

was over and who was responsible.

He could have left the briefing to Price, the most senior agency official

present. Instead,

he stepped up beside the chart and proceeded to

tear to pieces the entire elaborately crafted presentation of

prowess. Anderson pointed out that

tlie

CIA

carefully delineated lines of

communication between Saddam s security apparatus and the agency stations in neighboring countries

that those

who might have

were

little

more than rumors, and

sent messages indicating a willingness to

conspire against the leader were just as likely to be double agents

ulti-

mately controlled by the spymasters in Baghdad.

was a withering performance. The high-level group in the room, who had arrived in the expectation of good news, was aghast It

INTRIGUE

THE MOUNTAINS

IN

and indignant. After Anderson had spoke up

Anderson, as one it,

CIA

official

here?" she asked angrily.

discussing the events of the day put

had "rained on the parade." But

that

Madeleine Albright

finished,

"Why are we

in exasperation.

171

this

was

he dismissed the idea of pursuing the

swan song.

his

was not

It

of a coup, or

possibilities

favored one approach to the Iraqi problem over another.

He had sim-

ply decided to give the policy makers the unvarnished truth; casting a blight

on Price s big day may have been an added incentive. However,

the higher-level bureaucracy

news

that conflicts with

is

congenitally unwilling to accept

bad

deep-set hopes and desires. Anderson had

its

suggested that the glass was at least half empty. Despite his perfor-

mance, full.

officials at

In the White

gence

affairs

the highest levels persisted in believing

House

itself,

Tony Lake, was no

adviser

staff,

boss, National Secu-

by the

less intrigued

George Tenet,

possibility.

As head of NE, Frank Anderson had been catholic toward

in his attitude

aspects of the operation against Saddam. Lacking

all

faith that

was half

for example, the director for intelli-

on the National Security Council

was a powerful advocate of the coup option. His rity

it

much

anything was likely to work, he had been happy to endorse

London

avenues. If the

station

was excited about lyad Alawi and

plans for a coup, Anderson was happy to

let

other hand, there was the ongoing effort with Iraqi National Congress.

A month

all

his

them proceed. On the Ahmad Chalabi and the

Anderson was happy for that to proceed

also.

before his climactic interview with Jim Woolsey, Anderson

had given the go-ahead

to

send a team of CIA

would work with the INC

at their

officers into Iraq.

They

base in the liberated zone of Iraqi

Kurdistan.

"What

I

wanted them

decision, "was to

be

to do," as

Anderson

later explained his

in a position to look for this hoped-for,

but yet-

to-be-achieved coalition of forces that might put us in a position to

move forward

against the

smile as he said tle faith in

The

this,

Saddam regime." Anderson gave

a possible indication that he personally

a

wry

had

lit-

the prospects of any such forces appearing.

decision to send

on Capitol Intelligence

Hill.

CIA officers

into Iraq

In September 1994, two

Committee

staff,

had powerful support

members of

Chris Straub and

Don

the Senate

Mitchell,

had

ventured into Kurdistan on a fact-finding mission and had met with

DUT OF THE ASHES Ahmad

Chalabi, the Kurdish leader Massoud mer general Hassan al-Naquib, customarily

Barzani, and the for-

occasions as a representative of support for the military circles.

freedom

As a

result of their

on such

trotted out

INC

in senior

Sunni

encounter with these doughty

Straub and Mitchell returned to Washington

fighters,

vastly impressed. Senate support for the agency's cUents in northern

Iraq increased commensurately and the dispatch of a team of actual

CIA

officers

was speedily approved by the Intelligence Committee.

In early October, the

first

team, led by a ruddy-faced Chicagoan

named Warren Marik, arrived to set up shop. The four men on this team, Uke those who field

the agency equivalents of lieutenant colonels and

officers,

majors, far

followed them, were

removed

Anderson and

in rank

Price. Policy

and power from senior

officials like

was conceived and argued over high

above their pay grade. Their job was to deal with the surrogates, in this case

Kurds and opposition

Iraqis, in

the information seeping out of Iraq.

order to collect and evaluate

They had done

this

land of thing

had joined the CIA after fighting with the Army in Vietnam, and had then been part of the massive agency

before. Marik, for example,

U.S.

operation training and supporting the Afghan Mujaheddin against the

Russians in the 1980s. For a year before he went to Kurdistan, he had

been assigned

to the Iraq office at

ing under "Big operation.

CIA headquarters

Ron" Wren, the man

in

in Langley, act-

immediate charge of the Iraq

While there he had dealt with administrative

ing fruitless attempts to rein in the

enormous

tasks, includ-

costs of John

Rendons

propaganda operation. "Every time something happened John would jump on the Concorde," he lamented

later.

in Iraq,

While

at

headquarters, he had been in almost daily contact with Chalabi, far

away

in Kurdistan.

Now

he and

his colleagues

were going

into the

heart of tilings.

Salahudin, where the Americans were housed in a heavily

guarded

villa, sits

high up on the western fringe of the dramatically

beautiful Zagros Mountains, which stretch across Kurdistan and into Iran.

The

villa

looked out over the plains that extend

all

the

way

to

the Persian Gulf, far to the south, and in the near distance, the city

of Arbil, a forty-five-minute drive

down

the switchback road that

INTRIGUE

IN

THE MOUNTAINS

leads to the plains. In the 1970s, resort,

complete with some

Swiss-style chalets

it

had

beefi developed as a

summer

indifferent hotels and prefabricated

where middle-class

to escape the scorching

1V3

from Arbil would go

families

summer heat. By

1994, the vacationers were

long gone and the hotels were occupied by the Iraqi opposition.

INC had

taken over an

entire hotel, decorating

it

The

with lurid posters

depicting the imminent defeat of Saddam. Chalabi and his staff had all

rented houses for themselves. There were also offices to run the

INC s

radio and

TV

services

and one that produced

"It was like a mini-state," fondly recalls one

days. Since the

INC was funded by

INC

its

newspaper.

activist

of those

the CIA, this mini-state consti-

tuted an agency operation comparable in scale to the infamous Bay

of Pigs effort against Castro almost thirty years before. ter struck the

had

to

INC two

be evacuated

years

to safety

many

as five

by the United

States.

later, as

Despite the fact that the Kurdish enclave was

from the nication cers,

When

officially

sealed off

rest of Iraq, there was, nonetheless, considerable

between the two

went back and

regions. Individuals, even Iraqi

forth to visit friends

and

disas-

thousand people

relatives.

An

commu-

army

offi-

extensive

smugghng network crossed the lines, hauling diesel fuel up from the oil fields (still firmly in Saddam s hands) to the border crossing with Turkey at Khabur, controlled by the Kurds, and food and other consumer goods back down. Using such routes, the INC (hke the Kurdish groups and the host of foreign intelligence agencies at work in the north) was able to establish

its

own network of contacts to relay fines. The mechanism of this

news of what was going on behind the

arrangement was fueled by money, ultimately supplied by the CIA. Unfortunately, the nature of the system encouraged production but

who had information to supply got who had no news did not. A related "product" of the INC intelligence system was the individuals fleeing Saddam s regime. Many of these people had occupied sensitive positions before leaving. Those who had valuable not always accuracy, since those

paid, while those

secrets or contacts to divulge could

hope

to

be passed on into the

greater freedom of the outside world, with an American green card as the ultimate prize.

Sometimes these

arrivals

were of great impor-

DUT DF THE ASHES tance vices.

—high-ranking generals or

officers

from the inteUigence

Others were more problematic, minor figures eager to

their importance in the

Baghdad regime

in the

ser-

inflate

hope of a speedy

passage to the United States. Professional intelligence officers on the spot to debrief such "wallc-ins" tion,

even

would minimize the if all

interrogation

risk

had

of missing important informa-

to

be carried out through

inter-

preters (suppHed by Chalabi or one of the Kurdish groups). Only

one of the CIA

officers

and March 1995 spoke

posted to Salahudin between October 1994 Arabic;

none spoke Kurdish. Marik himself

could get along in Turkish and a few of his colleagues had learned Farsi, the

language of Iran.

For the INC, the presence of the Americans could be presented as an affirmation of American support. Later, Chalabi claimed that the

Americans had announced on dieir arrival that "the United States gov-

Saddam Hussein, and we want your help on this." This was a rather more dramatic take on the purposes of the mission than the modest objectives in Andersons mind when he ernment has decided

issued the orders.

to get rid of

The INC, with

feeble military strength and well-

its

advertised antipathy to installing another Baathist military strongman in place

rid" of

of Saddam, were not considered a promising vehicle to "get

Saddam. But the Americans were not there

the INC.

them

to

An

especially secret

component of

just to

work with

their orders directed

work direcdy with the Accord, bypassing die INC with which

the Accord was nominally

affiliated.

The Accord had its own presence in Kurdistan, headed by a former general in the Iraqi army named Adnan Nuri. Nuri, a somewhat sinister-looking Turcoman (a minority people in Iraq), had a direct connection with the CIA. In June 1992, just after the (CIA-funded)

INC

in Vienna, the

founding conference

Washington in the

for a discreet

Tysons

II

meeting

separately from the

was to

the Sheraton Premiere Hotel

suburban shopping mall. At the meeting, the

agency representatives told him,

INC, but work

at

agency had flown Nuri to

as

he

later reported,

"You work

INC, but don't resign from the INC. Be in the The "work" the Americans had in mind

separately."

facilitate a

coup. In public, meanwhile, the U.S. government

gave a very different impression of its plans for Iraq. Not long after

INTRIGUE

IN

THE MOUNTAINS

Hous? assured the INC of

the recruitment of Nuri, the White

lack of interest in the "dictator option,"

replace

its

a miUtary coup to

i.e.,

Saddam with another strongman.

Thus the American operation

in Kurdistan

and double-dealing from the moment the

was mired

covert

operation?"

Adding

to the complexities of the

that they

were

maliciously

sitting in the

inquired

as

situation

political

its

very

an overt or a

one Kurdish

CIA officers'

middle of a

in intrigue

team made

first

appearance in Salahudin. ("Are you here

visible

1V5

official.)

was the

fact

earthquake zone.

Ever since George Bush had been reluctantly impelled to send

American troops a safe

haven

into Kurdistan in April 1991, the

in their

Kurds had enjoyed

mountainous homeland. The troops had

der in Turkey were a guarantee that Saddam s forces

would not come north

but

from their Incerlik base across the bor-

daily flights of U.S. warplanes

plains

left,

again.

As a

result,

down on

the

the Iraqi Kurds were

enjoying a de facto independence. Turkish Kurds under the banner of

the militarily efficient and ruthless

been waging a bloody insurgency while the death

toll

PKK

against

guerrilla organization

had

Ankara ever since 1984, but

mounted, diey seemed no nearer to achieving

To the east, a short-lived bid for autonomy by the Kurds in Iran had been summarily crushed by the ayatollahs in Tehran soon

their goal.

after the Iranian revolution in 1979.

Only

in Iraq

were these long-

suffering people in a position to govern themselves. In the spring of

1992, they had held an election, voting for an assembly that provided

the mandate for a Kurdish regional government.

Launched with great

enthusiasm, the Kurdish Regional Government

(KRG)

struggled

manfully to cope with the overwhelming problems of a country with a

minimally functioning economy devastated by war and seeded with land mines. late in 1991,

The Kurds' problems were compounded by the fact that Saddam instituted his own sanctions on the Kurdish area,

banning trade and refusing to allow the transport, via Baghdad, of humanitarian supplies by international agencies. Since the sanctions

imposed by the United Nations made no

distinction

between liberated

Kurdish Iraq and those parts of the country ruled by Saddam, the

Kurds were under a double

These pressing

siege.

difficulties

were caused by the recent wars and

the rebellion that had devastated the region. In addition, the quasi-

aUTQFTHEASHES

176

independent enclave had to contend with an equally destructive

his-

torical legacy.

Traditionally, the

Kurds had always been cursed by

factionalism. Kurdish society

rivalries

had remained divided along

and

tribal lines

long after the societies around them had evolved into nation-states.

Even

Kurdish nationalism began to emerge well into

as a sense of

the twentieth century, such divisions remained a fatal weakness.

Time and again a Kurdish leader challenging a central government in Baghdad would find that other leaders from rival tribes would seize the opportunity to make deals with the enemy, at the expense of the insurgent, in exchange for cash or increased local influence.

It

was a

semifeudal society in which division had long been the natural order.

Adding million,

to the difficulties of the Kurds,

was the

fact diat

who numbered some 25

they were divided by national borders. Con-

centrated in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran (with

some in

Syria

and some in the

former Soviet Union), they were strong enough to frighten and cause trouble for the central authorities in each of these countries but never

strong or united enough to wrest control of their or anodier of these powers might, for their

encouragement lions,

to a neighbor's

Kurds

in

own

one of

own homeland. One reasons, give aid

and

their periodic rebel-

but never enough to ensure success and almost always with a

view to ultimate betrayal. In 1974-75, for example, the Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani led a massive insurgency against the

government.

He

tribal

Baghdad

accepted military help from the shall of Iran, who,

however, was only giving

it

as a

means

to pressure

Baghdad

into con-

cessions in another area. Barzani foolishly believed that the involve-

ment of the CIA on his side, on orders from the White House, was a guarantee against abandonment by his ally in Tehran. Once Saddam Hussein agreed to Iran's demands for increased control over the Shatt al-Arab waterway on the two countries' southern border, the shah

abandoned Barzani without any protest from the U.S. government. As a subsequent U.S. congressional report noted, secret

on the operation

clearly

showed

did not want their Kurdish

that the

allies to

CIA documents

White House and the shah

win. "They preferred instead that

the insurgents simply continue a level of hostilities sufficient to sap the resources of [Iraq]. report, "ours

.

.

.

Even

was a cynical

in the context of covert action," said the

exercise."

INTRIGUE

THE MOUNTAINS

IN

177

may have been to decent Americans, such a doublecross by governments who used the Kurds for their own purposes was hardly novel. As Saddam HusAs shocking

as the

evidence of

mention

sein himself took care to

this perfidy

in his address to the nation

halfway through the Kurdish uprising that followed the Gulf War:

"Every Kurdish movement that was linked to the foreigner or relied

on him

politically,

militarily,

or materially brought only loss and

destruction to our Kurdish people."

Once

the Barzani uprising had been crushed, in 1975, the Kurdish

Democratic Party (KDP), the party that the old rebel had led to defeat, formally split apart.

An urban

intellectual, Jalal Talabani,

who

had long resented and contested the feudal control of the Barzani famfounded a

ily,

rival

group that he called the

stan (PUK). Within a

among

few

years, the

The KDP, now

themselves.

"Mullah Mustafa" (who had died in

from Iran in exchange

By

groups united in

Saddam

—even

Union of Kurdi-

were

fighting bitterly

sides

by Massoud Barzani, a son of

accepted arms and money Saddam when the Iran-Iraq war

exile),

for help against

broke out in 1980. Talabani s with Saddam.

two

led

Patriotic

PUK in turn formed a temporary alliance

1986, the wheel had turned again.

both accepting support from Tehran to

alliance,

as the Iraqi leader

Kurds so they would

The Kurdish

fight

on

fight

was busily subsidizing the Iranian

his side.

As we have seen, the two main Kurdish leaders and their respective followers

combined

March 1991, although

to plan another uprising in

the rebellion that did break out was largely a spontaneous affair that swiftly ran out of control.

Following the ejection of Saddam's forces

from northern Iraq (with U.S. and that they

had a joint

allied help),

and despite the

fact

interest in maintaining the fragile statelet of Iraqi

Kurdistan, Barzani and Talabani were hardly united.

The "govern-

ment" was delegated to underlings while the two leaders concentrated on advancing rivalry,"

on the

common

Talabani

interests.

"They are obsessed with

politician told

modem

strategy.

the other party." ers.

own

one Kurdish

authority

a

their

David MacDowall, the leading

history of the Kurds.

There

is

no

their party

strategy at

all,

"They do not work out except to get aliead of

Each of them jockeyed for support from outside pow-

made

overtures to the Turks, while for a long period

Barzani enjoyed the patronage of the Iranians.

They both lobbied

for

"

OUT OF THE ASHES the support of the most important patron of covertly, they

both maintained

lines of

all:

Washington. More

communication

witli tlieir old

enemy in Baghdad. However, while

officially

partners in governing Iraqi Kurdistan,

the two Kurdish leaders were also leading

National Congress.

warmed

to the

had agreed

One

INC

—^which

Washington's Turkish

post-Saddam

its

genesis was the fact that the Kurds

inside Iraq's borders.

were forswearing thoughts of

would have deeply offended and alarmed

ally

Iraq. In

the Iraqi

of the reasons that the United States had

during

to join, signifying that they

independence

members of

—and pledging

It also

to

remain part of a unified

INC

consequence, the

gained a secure base

gained, at least in theory, the potential

use of the Kurdish groups' thirty thousand or so Peshmerga fighters.

The INC did begin fielding its own force of a few hundred lightly armed troops in 1993, mostly deserters from the Iraqi army, and for outside consumption their numbers were inflated to "thousands. The INC and its CIA backers therefore were dependent for their continued operation on

political stability in a

land where the natural

order was dissension and fighting. If the Kurds were to escalate their

arguments and intrigues and revert to actual warfare, then Saddam

would have the opportunity event, the

to

move back

INC would be doomed.

into the mountains. In that

In 1994, the Kurds began fighting

again.

The immediate cause was money.

Kurdistan, economically isolated

and devastated by war, did possess one

significant asset: the

border

between Iraq and Turkey. The Unes of huge trucks, laden with sanctionsbusting Iraqi diesel-fuel exports, waiting to cross into Turkey at

Khabur, outside Zakho, provided a

fruitful

source of revenue to who-

ever controlled the crossing point. Every truck, coming or going, paid toUs,

adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As

pened, Zakho and

soud Barzani's Barzani's in

its

KDP

it

so hap-

environs lay in the territory controlled by Mas-

and was more immediately dominated by

nephew, Nachirvan. U.S. State Department officials involved

humanitarian aid took to calling him "the best-dressed

distan," his

man in Kur-

wardrobe periodically updated by trips to Neiman Marcus

and other fashionable

stores in the malls

Jalal Talabani's principal

around Washington.

support lay farther to the

east.

While the

INTRIGUE

IN

THE MOUNTAINS

179

PUK controlled major cities such as Sulaimaniya as well as a few minor border crossings with Iran, Talabani did not directly dominate any lucrative border-crossing point.

For a few years

ment of the Kurdish Regional Government

after the establish-

in 1992, this

major bone of contention. The "minister of finance"

ment was

a

PUK man who

was

in

charge of collecting die

Khabur, closely watched by an emissary from the portion of die

May

was not a

in the governtolls at

KDP At least a pro-

money found its way into the common kitty. Then, modus vivendi began to break down.

in

1994, the Kurdish

The immediate cause was

between two

a local land dispute

groups, each allied with a different dominant faction. Neither of the

two leaders could completely control

and

his followers,

fighting

gradually flared across the north, with casualties in the hundreds. It fell

to the

INC

leader

Ahmad

Chalabi to broker a cease-fire.

Americans who were on the ground agreed that he and nates — mostly Arabs, with some Kurds —

his subordi-

^were extraordinarily suc-

cessful in the mediation effort. Essentially, the

between the two

sides,

INC

inserted itself

sometimes when they were actually

each other, setting up checkpoints complete with leading from one group s area to the other.

By

the

flags

firing at

on roads

end of August

1994, these unremitting efforts had paid off and an uneasy peace

had descended over the mountains. As a

INC

the

result, the local prestige

of

skyrocketed.

Chalabi, however, soon began complaining to Washington that

keeping the peace in Kurdistan was expensive. In messages to headquarters,

he cited the cost of maintaining checkpoints and teams

INC personnel were well compared with the Peshmerga, who were paid little, He needed more money a million dollars, he said

ready to mediate whenever tension flared. paid, at least as

when but

at

all

all.

—

he received from Washington were exhortations to continue

keeping the peace coupled with vague promises of payment later date. It

seemed

that Langley

was losing

interest in

its

at

some

proteges

in Salahudin.

Warren Marik had every sympathy with Chalabi s predicament. In exasperated cables back to headquarters, he pointed out the importance of keeping the rival Kurds from each others throats and the small amount of money involved. "All I got were sort of

UT OF THE ASHES 'check s-in-the-mail-type promises,' that there

were

that "there's later

problems

no authorization

did Marik

reflected the

In

legal

come

in

to

"

he said

fund an

INC

He was

money on

informed

the grounds

mediation force." Only

understand that Langley's disinterest

to

waning appeal of the INC

December

later.

sending the

in

Washington.

1995, the Kurds started fighting again, this time

PUK had been Khabur were now gone

with greater intensity. Whatever revenues the receiving indirectly from the border forever, as

freight

were

own

Talabani's

companies

tolls at

highly profitable investments in

border crossing with Turkey. The

at the

PUK

leader, however, scored a considerable military success at Christmas

by capturing the Kurdish from

Salaliudin, ejecting the forces of the

the Kurds had

managed

to rule themselves in

dad, was embroiled in a vicious Just as the civil

civil

freedom from Bagh-

war.

war broke out anew,

importance arrived

down the mountain KDP. Kurdistan, where

"capital" of Arbil,

a defector of extraordinary

General Wafiq al-Samarrai had

in Salahudin.

some time. In the summer of 1991, feeling that the Kurds had to come to some kind of settlement with their mortal enemy, since none of their neighbors would countenance an independent Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani had gone to Baghdad to negotiate. Since Kurdish affairs were tradibeen preparing his escape from Baghdad

for

had

tionally the responsibility of military intelligence, al-Samarrai

been ordered by Saddam

to escort the

Kurdish delegation. During a

meeting with Hussein Kamel, the Kurds watched, open mouthed, the loutish but all-powerful for

some imagined

infraction. In the car after the meeting, the

Kurds asked al-Samarrai how he,

army

officer,

as

Kamel cursed and abused al-Samarrai as a high-ranking professional

could tolerate such behavior from "a sergeant." Al-

Samarrai gazed out the window and then muttered,

"It

might not

always be hke this."

That was dangerous

talk in

Samarrai and the Kurds knew

Saddam's Baghdad and both it.

When

Barzani and his

al-

men

returned to the north after breaking off negotiations with Saddam, the intelligence general stayed in touch. This was a hair-raisingly risky course of action, but, as a

came

to

know

member of the

the general well put

it,

Iraqi opposition

who

"Wafiq was one of them, he

INTRIGUE

IN

THE MOUNTAINS

1B1

knew how they operated their intelHgence and how to evade them." Early in 1992, Saddam transferred al-Samarrai to an inteUigence post in the presidential palace, where he stayed until the day he was

informed by a friend, planning to

kill

him.

for help in being

ber

2,

late in 1994, that his suspicious

He was

smuggled

out.

The Kurds

met there were very surprised indeed officer took

"Ali!

What

one look

at

obliged,

Some

1994, he walked into Salaliudin.

CIA

master was

able to get a message to Barzani, asking

and on Decem-

of the old friends he

to see him.

A

newly arrived

the general and shouted defightedly:

are you doing here?"

It

transpired that in a previous age,

the officer had been posted to Baghdad as part of the liaison group sent by the agency to assist

He had

code name

The

Saddam Hussein

dealt directly with al-Samarrai, but

in his

Iran.

"Ali."

assorted guerrillas and revolutionaries in the

bemusedly

war with

had known him by the

as the

room watched

two intelligence professionals reminisced about

old times. "It proves a point," laughs Alimad Chalabi. "The only real friends

and contacts the CIA had

in Iraq

were

Baathists!"

The Iraqi intelligence general had many secrets to tell. For Unscom, he had news of Saddam s ongoing biological weapons program. For Chalabi, he had exciting news about conditions inside the

army and which commanders were disaffected. He mentioned Saddam might be contemplating a visit to the city of Samarra, al-Samarrai s hometown, in the near future. Were that to happen, the general thought that it might be possible to enlist members of his own numerous and powerful clan to ambush the leader's cavalIraqi

that

cade

as

it

crossed a bridge into the

city.

This kind of idle talk did not constitute a concrete assassination plot,

and none of the seasoned conspirators who talked

that time took

him

particularly seriously.

to

him

"Maybe Wafiq was

at

exag-

gerating everything in order to give himself a big role in Kurdistan,"

suggested one senior

INC

official

afterward. But discussion of the

Samarra assassination scheme was to cause problems Chalabi, beset witli

money problems, an

later on.

attitude of apparent indif-

ference back in Langley, and bitter fighting between his Kurdish aUies,

INC with what he called the "two To the south of the liberated zone lay two large and impor-

saw a way of raising the profile of tiie cities" plan.

OUT DF THE ASHES tant cities,

Saddam were to lose them, it would The INC leaders notion was to apply generals commanding the Iraqi army gar-

Mosul and Kirkuk.

be a serious blow

the "carrot and stick." If the risons in

If

to his regime.

and around the

they would allow the

cities

INC

could be suborned to the extent that

free rein to infiltrate their cities, this

provoke a reaction from Saddam, relieved. It would to

Baghdad

who would order the

would

generals to be

then be put to these generals that rather than return

to face their masters wrath, they should defect with their

families to the

INC. Should the generals

resist

these blandishments,

then the "stick" would be applied in the form of military attacks by the

INC and units ful

its allies.

Given the poor shape of the ordinary

up near the front

enough

lines,

Iraqi

army

these attacks would probably be success-

to embarrass the generals

and get them

into trouble with

Baghdad. Either way, the Iraqi military would be progressively weak-

ened and even further demoralized, leading loss

in turn to a progressive

of Saddams control. Al-Samarrai gave vocal encouragement to the

scheme. According to some reports, the general was promising an uprising by his friends and supporters in military units around Iraq, to

occur as soon as Saddam was distracted by an north. In the best of

INC

offensive in the

possible outcomes for Chalabi, an Iraqi

all

counter-attack in the North

would

in turn

prompt U.S.

military inter-

vention. It

was an

intricate

and imaginative

mander operating with might have approved

which any guerrilla com-

plan,

a secure base and firm support from outside as a sensible initiative in

wearing down the

enemy's main forces. But Chalabi did not have a secure base allies

were

fighting.

since the high

Nor did he have

command

of the

the possibilities of a coup. fact,

CIA was

He was

his

increasingly transfixed by

running short of money and, in

had recently borrowed considerable sums from

men grown

—

firm support from outside,

rich in the smuggling trade.

If,

local business-

however, he were to

score a dramatic success, the situation might be recouped. But he

would have

to act soon, since

he knew

full

well that he had rivals for

the agency's affections.

The

senior

management of the

CIA's

Near East Division might

have been deluding themselves into thinking that the INA's preparations for a

coup were cloaked

in darkest secrecy,

but they were

INTRIGUE INC knew

wrong. "The

THE MOUNTAINS

IN

1S3

what was*^oing on,"

exactly

INA was

the field officers formerly stationed in northern Iraq. "The as leaky as a sieve.

Chalabi wanted to preempt them."

The catalyst that was to spark Chalabi's move the prospects of the

INC

—

"Bob," as he later became

who had

one of

recalls

known

in the media,

served in Afghanistan. In addition he

well from postings to various

the region, including Syria.

—and

in

doing so ruin

arrived in Salahudin in early January 1995.

CIA

He

was a lanky

knew

six-footer

die Middle East

around

stations in U.S. embassies

spoke passable Arabic.

Bob's mission, as conceived at headquarters in Langley, appears to

have been no different from that of the other agency

had been

rotating in

officers

who

and out of Kurdistan since October. This was

to

collect inteUigence as well as assist the purportedly super-secret

plots of

General Nuri and the Iraqi National Accord. Bob had not

been

in the

thing

more adventurous

country long when,

—a

it

seems, he decided to try some-

direct attack

on the

Iraqi regime.

For some of the characters who encountered that time, his

heady enthusiasm

this

CIA

officer at

for energetic action against

Saddam

appeared ludicrously naive. To a man, the veterans of countless encounters on the battlefield and

at

the bargaining table, betrayals,

defeats, massacres, exile, shifting aUiances,

of Iraqi Kurdish politics found of the local situation. adviser to

Massoud

ing to talk to about

"I liked

Barzani. all

bitter

and other routine aspects

Bob totally lacking in an understanding Bob," recalled Hoshyar Zibari, a senior

"He was

a really interesting guy, fascinat-

sorts of things.

But he had some

really

weird

ideas."

The spark

that impelled the

CIA

officer into full-scale action

was

struck far to the south of Kurdistan, in a place called al-Quma, near

the marshes that straddle the border between Iran and southern Iraq.

On February

426th Brigade of the Iraqi army suffered a armed clash there and lost several hundred men killed or taken prisoner The attackers were part of the "Badr Brigade," Iraqi Shiites armed and financed by Iran. It may be recalled that Iran had done Htde or nothing to help the Shiite rebels in March 1991. Despite fears in Washington that the 12, 1995, the

severe defeat in an

rebellion

was backed by

Iran, the

Tehran government,

fearful in

its

turn of provoking the United States, had permitted only small groups

aUTOFTHEASHES

1S4

of armed exiles to cross the border to help the uprising. did were

members of

been raised by the

the

The few

same Badr Brigade, which had

Iraqi Shiite leader

had fought with considerable

effect

that

originally

Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and on the Iranian side

in the Iran-

Iraq war. Since the uprising, the brigade had been permitted by the Iranian government to

make armed

incursions into southern Iraq,

operating out of the sanctuary of the marshes. (These marshes were,

however, a diminishing sanctuary, since Saddam was dealing with the

problem by draining them, displacing the unique community of the

Marsh Arabs who had

lived there for thousands of years.

few people who worked to draw attention al-Shahristani,

As

Iraq's

now in exile in

to their plight

of the

was Hussain

Iran.)

most powerful neighbor and bitter enemy, Iran was a cru-

cial factor in

the politics of the region, which the United States, as a

matter of pohcy, was determined to ignore. In the

some

One

officials in

emissaries of

the National Security Council had

Hakim with

summer of 1992, made overtures to

a view to assisting the southern fighters,

embarrassing Saddam, and aiding President Bush's reelection campaign.

The

initiative

foundered, though Bush did institute a southern

"no-fly zone" for the Iraqis, enforced

symboHc gesture office,

by

allied aircraft, as

to aid those fighting in the south.

Soon

an entirely after taking

the Clinton administration proclaimed the policy of "dual con-

tainment," under which Iraq and Iran were to be treated as pariahs of

equal status. Cooperation with Iran against

Saddam was absolutely out

of the question. Witli the eager encouragement of Ahmad Chalabi and

Wafiq al-Samarrai, Bob resolved to change

all that.

"Bob got very excited when he heard what the Badr Brigade had "He almost went berserk. It showed that the Iraqi army was vulnerable." The American and the Iraqi had already

done," says Chalabi.

had long discussions about the "two Chalabi

later,

"Bob

said, 'Let's

cities" plan.

Now, explained

do the plan from the north and the

south.'"

Bob's excitement appears to have been additionally fueled by

al-

Samarrai's assertions regarding the possibility of a military-led uprising that could occur simultaneously with an offensive

However, al-Samarrai's

talk

of assassinating

from the north.

Saddam himself

Samarra gave him pause. Assassination of a foreign leader was

in

clearly

INTRIGUE

IN

THE MOUNTAINS

and while the Bush

against U.S. law,

admiflistration

IBS

had

set out to

do

Gulf War bombing campaign, the targeting of the Iraqi

just that in the

leader had been

cloaked in euphemisms about aim-

legally, if flimsily,

"command and control centers." Involvement in a plan to gun down Saddam in his car would have no such excuse, certainly not for a CIA field officer acting on his own initiative.

ing at

According to a former colleague in the CIA, "Bob got scared. tried to cover himself by reporting

got into a system [of communication] that reached the shall see, this report

was

He

back about Samarra. That message

to cause

Bob

NSC." As we

a lot of trouble in the near

future.

Meanwhile (according to statements by Chalabi, other senior INC officials,

and Hoshyar Zibari of the KDP, which Bob denies). Bob

out to enlist Iran in his scheme to

dam's forces. This was very

much

mount an

forbidden

territory, since

orders strictly warned against any contact by Iranians.

Bob was not

so reckless as to

make

set

offensive against Sad-

CIA

officers

standing

with the

direct contact with his

opposite numbers in Iranian intelligence (though he did confer with the Iranian-backed Shiite group) but, according to Chalabi, he did the next best thing.

"Bob came

to

me and said, T have a message for the

Iranians from

the White House: "The United States would not object to Iran joining in the fight against territorial integrity

Saddam Hussein provided it is committed to the of Iraq."'" Bob denies making the statement and

Chalabi recalls that he did not believe the message, which was hardly surprising, since

it

suggested a sudden abandonment of "dual contain-

ment," a cornerstone of the Clinton administration's foreign said,

T

As

can't it

do

that,' "

reports the

INC

so happened, "the Iranians"

leader, "but

Bob

were close

at

policy. "I

insisted."

hand. Like the

CIA, Tehran's intelligence services kept a close eye on develop-

ments

in Salahudin. Like the

to talk to their

CIA team,

they were

American counterparts. In

late

strictly

forbidden

February 1995, two

such officers from the Pasdaran, a part of the Revolutionary Guards (an especially influential military and intelligence

regime), were in the town. Chalabi went to the

CIA man could

message to pass on.

arm of the Islamic

them and

said that while

not talk directly to them, he had given Chalabi a

He

then related the contents of Bob's

electrify-

"

UT OF THE ASHES ing communication, adding that "I cannot vouch for the authenticity

of the message."

Despite

this caveat,

Chalabi cooperated in a

which by prior agreement the CIA

little

made

bit

of theater, in

a public appearance

lobby of the al-Khadra Hotel in Salahudin while the Iranians

in the

were

officer

visiting

the White

Chalabi as an impHcit guarantee that the message from

House was

"Neither side was allowed to talk to

autlientic.

the other, but they spoke in body language!" chortles an observer of the mime. "They were Iranians, the Iranians

all

Bob eyed the

standing there in the lobby;

eyed Bob.

must have gone on

It

for three or four

minutes."

This exercise in mute communication worked,

at least for a while.

The Iranians, in a state of high excitement, rushed to report the momentous news of the U.S. message to General Mohammed Jaafari, the presiding

By now, around

it

official

on Kurdish

affairs for Iranian intelligence.

the welter of intrigue swirling in Salahudin and the area

was becoming increasingly complicated. Various players

appear to have convinced themselves that they were the ones manipu-

Bob was convinced

lating events.

pushing Chalabi into action. time, but,

Bob

later

"I told

that he was the moving spirit in him he was wasting our money and

more important, he was wasting

Chalabi has not been loath to support that

a historical opportunity,"

claimed in a newspaper interview. "He knew

"Bob kept

pressing,

"When

is

this

this version

I

was

right."

of events, agreeing

going to happen?'

Others are not so sure, suggesting

that, in fact,

was being manipulated by Chalabi, who

in turn

it

was Bob who

was taking a

lot

of

advice from Wafiq al-Samarrai. Hoshyar Zibari, the senior adviser to

Massoud

Barzani, states that "Wafiq,

years before he

came north

or at least better than

some

we

—

whom we

his information

got from others

—

had been paying

for

was good, by the way,

^was discussing a plan for

sort of coup with us, with the idea that

we

should make a mili-

tary offensive as a cover. Chalabi sold the idea of the offensive to

Bob

in

rowed

February 1995. Chalabi owed a in late

1994 from businessmen

lot

in

of money that he had bor-

northern Iraq and he had to

do something."

A Bob

former close associate of Chalabi s agrees: "Chalabi was using as a tool rather than believing everything

he

said

and promised."

INTRIGUE

—

concerned

All

CIA

officer

1S7

emphatic exception of the hyperactive

^with the

—are agreed

THE MOUNTAINS

IN

Bob now made

that

audacity of his promises. Iraqi tank units,

quantum jump in the he announced, would be a

defecting to fight on the rebel side. According to Chalabi and Zibari, as

an incentive to the various groups involved, particularly Barzani's

KDP—militarily

by

far

strongest

the

faction

Kurdistan

in

promised that the military offensive would have American

air

—he

support,

a virtual guarantee of success.

Bob now angry

if

you mention

it,"

if

there would be air cover,

In one area at

Bob did

least.

I

air cover.

heard Bob

When

he and Chalabi

effort,

persuaded the two warring Kurdish factions to declare a that they

Barzani

say, Tes.'"

score a notable success. Energeti-

cally throwing his weight into the mediation

The hope was

gets very

says Chalabi. "But he certainly encouraged

Barzani to believe that there would be U.S.

asked him

"He

claims that he never promised air cover.

would now join forces

cease-fire.

Saddam. But

against

the most powerful of the Kurds, Massoud Barzani, remained highly

dubious about the undertaking.

"Bob hed to everybody," us and

said,

'I

to execute his plan.' fool,

says

He

promised

was the very last person

face value.

Bob was probably

had a

real

in

I

am

(Curiously,

no

CIA promise at father in 1975

one former CIA

officer insists

the only agency officer in northern Iraq "who

why

States.")

in late February, according to sources in the Iraqi

opposition, Barzani

made

been a major change "because every

here

air support." Barzani, definitely

understanding of what Barzani had been through and

At a meeting

official

some sharp

his misgivings clear.

in U.S. policy,"

who

not to provoke the Iraqis."

"How

"He came to see

northern Iraq to take a

he had good reason to mistrust the United

tion with

flatly.

The memory of the American betrayal of his

had not dimmed with time. that

Hoshyar Zibari

represent the President of the United States.

has ever

He

"There must have

he remarked pointedly

come here

to

Bob,

has always told us

followed up this pertinent observa-

questions.

wiU you defend Mosul and Kirkuk once

we have

taken

them?" "With our planes."

"How will the planes

differentiate

between

Iraqi units that

come

a

OUT OF THE ASHES over to us and the ones that are

still

The Kurds were amused by allies in

and trucks so

Barzani's suspicions

and trusted aide Zibari

ment

at the

sions.

were not to

Washington,

He

allayed.

London

to

insists,

was contemplating military action of

northern Iraq. Barzani drew the appropriate concluoffensive

would go forward without

air

his activities

is

how much

fully

informed

KDP

support

—

allies.

Bob's superiors really

and when they knew

he kept Washington

afoot. It

of horrified astonish-

eliciting cries

an open question as to

It is

dispatched his close

check out what he had been

decision he neglected to communicate to his

knew about

given

news of what was being promised coupled with fervent

in

Any

"We have

that the planes will recognize them."

denials that the United States

any land

Saddam?"

the garrison in Mosul a special paint to put on

our secret their tanks

told. Zibari called

loyal to

Bob's quick reply:

it.

at all

Just possibly, as

he

times of what was

possible that they found out about the alleged promise of

support and the discussions with al-Samarrai about assassinating

Saddam when

the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted a

radio report from the Iranian intelligence officers in Salahudin to their superiors regarding their encounter with Bob. Zibari's queries

would

also

have

let

the cat out of the bag.

In addition, Chalabi's

CIA were determined ing a success. 1995.

Two

The

rivals for

the affections and support of the

that there should

offensive

be no

was scheduled

days before. General

Adnan

risk

of the

to begin

INC

scor-

on March

3,

Nuri, leader of the Iraqi

National Accord in northern Iraq, flew to Washington to drip poison in the ears of his

agency handlers. The

INC

operation, he declared,

was a devious plot masterminded by Wafiq al-Samarrai United States into another war with Saddam.

He

to

draw the

claimed that

al-

Samarrai himself had attempted to enlist him in the scheme, saying,

"Come, and we make a plan to deceive the Americans." Whether or not Nuri's malign spin was accepted, the highest levels of the U.S. government reacted with horror to- the news from Kurdistan. A full-scale offensive by the opposition could well draw Saddam's forces north in a counterattack. The last thing the White House, the Pentagon, or the CIA wanted was to have to make good on the U.S.

commitment

to protect the Kurdish enclave in the north.

INTRIGUE The

IN

was timed

offensive

THE MOUNTAINS

to begin at midnight

189

on March

3.

That

morning a cable arrived over the CIA communications system, patched by the President s national security addressed to the

INC

Bob

leaders. It fell to

adviser,

dis-

Tony Lake, and

to deliver the message.

This must have been an unappealing task, since the message stated that "the

United States would not support

operation militarily

this

or in any other way."

Despite ing his

this

depressing news, Chalabi did not give up. Address-

commanders on the eve of battle, he declared

fighting for the liberation of Iraq

regardless.

The

The order was

Peshmerga would a

given to advance on

be on two

attack was to

that they

were

and that they should press on fronts.

all

fronts. In the east, Jalal Talabani s

strike out for Kirkuk.

A hundred miles

combined force of some ten thousand

KDP

PUK

to the west,

Peshmerga and the

INC's one thousand-strong mihtia were to advance toward Mosul.

The

front line opposite

tary of the Tigris,

eager

them

INC body

Mosul

lay along the

Great Zab River, a tribu-

and was manned by KDP forces.

When the small but

of troops reached the

KDP

river,

the

refused to

let

pass.

Realizing that he had been

abandoned

for the

second time

ters at Sara Rash, a

few miles outside Salahudin, only to be greeted

with the news that Barzani was out of town and on his

The

one

rushed to Barzani s gaudily ornate personal headquar-

day, Chalabi

Turkey.

in

anxious

INC

leader had to

make do with

way

to

the famously

well-dressed Nachirvan, and despite pleading through the night,

Chalabi failed to get the

KDP to move.

Meanwhile, though Barzani had decided to Jalal

Talabani and the

sit

out the offensive,

PUK remained fully supportive. He may have

agreed to press on in pursuit, despite the evaporation of American

and

KDP

support, merely with the limited objective of pushing the

Iraqis farther

December

away from

Arbil, the prize

he had gained

in the

fighting.

Initially, the offensive went well. Seven hundred Iraqi troops "who probably hadn't been fed in two weeks," as one American

—

refief official observed surrendered. The lightly armed groups of Peshmerga "occupied" a few square miles of countryside. There were no uprisings in any Iraqi military units elsewhere

humanitarian

OUT DF THE ASHES in the country. Just

On March Iraqi

over two weeks after

it

began, the attack was over.

numbers of Turkish troops crossed the border of Kurdistan from the north. They were officially in pursuit of PKK 19, large

guerrillas fighting the

though they may in

Ankara government from bases inside

reality

have been responding to a request for help

from Saddam. In any event, Talabani hurriedly pulled back to protect Arbil,

which

front line reverted to

be

let go, as

grace

previous position.

Iraqi division in front of Kirkuk

—a belated example of the

he did not

and the

"stick"

prisoners had to

At

least the

was sacked,

approach

in action

com-

in dis-

—though

defect.

The whole

sorry affair was a disaster for

Iraqi National Congress, his

Even the

INC could not afford to feed tliem.

the

mander of the

his forces

lay in the line of the Turkish advance,

its

Iraq,

Ahmad

Chalabi, the

and anyone who hoped that Saddam and

regime could be displaced, with help from the outside, by an

uprising.

The CIA hierarchy had never been among

school and

sumption

now

they vented their irritation on Chalabi for his pre-

in attempting

already in decline,

no more attempts

From

that particular

now went at

INC

such a bold stroke. into a

stock at Langley,

deep slump. There were

be

to

undermining Saddam from the periphery.

this point on, the

agency devoted the bulk of

fostering the long-anticipated coup, launched

its

attention to

from within the

Iraqi

rulers inner circle. Bob's dutiful report of the Samarra assassination idea,

which had

also

reached the ears of the Iranians, gave the

White House an excuse

to punish him.

He

spent

much

of the

fol-

lowing year under investigation by the FBI on charges of conspiring to

murder

a foreign leader. Ultimately, the Justice

decided not to prosecute. The

"military option," as

termed the increasingly popular coup inevitably result in the violent

plan,

Department

CIA

officers

would of course almost

demise of Saddam Hussein.

As the spring of 1995 turned into summer and recriminations flew back and forth both within and between the opposition groups, a far the court of

more

vicious dispute

Saddam Hussein. "Cracks

CIA and

was gathering force

in the inner circle,"

advertised by hopeful American spokesmen, were about to

a dramatic

reality.

Iraqi at

long

become

EIGHT

Deaths

The

the Family

in

convoy of black Mercedeses had been driving

the night across the

empty

fast

Iraqi desert for five hours

through

when

the

white concrete arch marking the border with Jordan appeared in the headhghts.

It

was the night of August

7,

1995, and Lieutenant

General Hussein Kamel, long one of the most powerful country, his

was fleeing

into exile.

younger brother, but

fifteen friends

and

in the

With him he was bringing not only

his wife,

Raghad, and sister-in-law Rina,

two of Saddam's much loved daughters, not dren and

men

relations

to

mention their

from the Majid

family.

chil-

The

world was about to learn of a momentous and unprecedented crack in

Saddam s inner circle. The fleet of cars roared toward

the border post, the headlights

Saddam Hussein that slowed down. The border

briefly illuminating the life-size statue of

stands watch over the frontier, and briefly officials

fully

took one look

waved them on

at

the august group of travelers and respect-

their way.

arch into Jordan, they

left

increasingly bitter hatreds

the group raced

down

As the motorcade sped under the

behind a regime consumed with the

and feuds of the ruling

the narrow road to

family.

Amman,

rancor was exploding in gunfire and bloodshed.

Even

as

the unbridled

OUT OF THE ASHES Infighting within the family

had been growing more intense since

early in 1995, exacerbated at every stage

by Uday. The previous year

he had directed the strident media campaign against government cials that

offi-

culminated in the assumption by Saddam himself of the post

of prime minister. There had been no improvement in the general

and economic

uation. Iraq's political

isolation continued.

sit-

Bombs were among

going off in Baghdad. There were increasing signs of unrest

once

fiercely loyal

Sunni

tribes, especially the

powerful Dalaim, cen-

tered in the city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad on the upper Euphrates. After what

may have been

a conspiracy to assassinate

time early in 1995, General arrested. In torture,

May, the government handed

back to his

and attacked police

dam and the

Mohammed Mazlum

Saddam someal-Dalaimi was

his body, mutilated

from

relatives.

Outraged, his fellow tribesmen rioted

stations. It

took the dispatch of efite troops by Sad-

death and wounding of several hundred Dalaimis before

the trouble subsided. (A detailed and colorful report of a further uprising by Dalaimis in the

army the following month was almost

disinformation, possibly part of a

CIA

strategy to create an

certainly

ambience

of "coups and rumors of coups.")

Uday had

mercilessly criticized these security lapses in the press,

criticisms that

uncles,

were by impfication

Watban, the

direct attacks

interior minister,

on

his

Ibrahim

and Sabawi, chief of the

al-

Amn al-Amm general security service, Saddam s half-brothers by his mothers second marriage. In May, Watban was dismissed. But Uday was Saddam's attacks

also directing his fire at the Majids, cousins

father's side, traditionally rivals

on

Ali

as the

hammer

late 1991, this ferocious

of the

hench-

of the ruler was dismissed from the defense ministry in the

middle of July 1995.

It is

hard to say whether Saddam himself was

actively encouraging these assaults

whether Uday was running out of san's dismissal, in

who

on men so close

control.

A week

to him, or

before Ali Has-

what may have been a veiled reference

relatives falhng out of favor, als

of the Ibrahims. Following

Hassan al-Majid, notorious

Kurds and defense minister since

man

on

Saddam

to those

criticized unspecified individu-

placed obstacles in his way "at a time

when we were remov-

ing one arrow after another from between our ribs." In any event, the ruler did not rein in his son,

who now began

to

DEATHS INTHE FAMILY

193

encroach on the military prerogatives of Htissein Kamel. As

we have

Uday had been competing with the once all-powerful Kamel for some years in the business sphere. Now, two weeks after the downfall of Kamel s uncle Ali Hassan, Uday suddenly appeared to seen,

be moving

to take charge of military transport

newfound

his

money as well

Hussein Kamel was trying to

em European country. Kamel

he and

up a

muscle

in.

now a lieutenant colonel

He

said

he talked

Raghad, with

to

he now had three children, and Rina (Saddam Kamel's

"Ten days before we decided to they might

show.

military contract with an Eastto

his brother,

without any hesitation. Perhaps

Tou

air

this precise time,

al-Khass presidential security service, decided to flee

the country at the end of July.

whom

At

as authority.

Uday wanted

later said that

Amn

in the

set

further highlighting

Uday attended an

interest in military affairs,

This was a fight over

by publicly oversee-

On August 3,

ing the repair of mihtary vehicles.

tell

their family.

But

travel, I at

I

explained

the beginning

all

we

wife).

the details

thought that

did not care about that and said:

either get ready to travel with

me

or

I

will travel alone.'

They

mind at all and came along with me to Amman." Kamel had certainly laid careful plans for his escape. For some time before he set off on that fateful trip across the desert he had been sending his accountant around the headquarters of the various did not

government organizations he controlled with requisition whatever hard currency they happened to have in their

slips for

safes.

None

could refuse the emissary of the apparently all-powerful Kamel, and as

much "I

am

as several million dollars

a

known

person,"

were collected

Kamel

said later with the arrogance that

me

on the road." Even

on August 7 before

setting off, either to

never deserted him. "No soldier could stop so,

he waited

until night fell

in this fashion.

escape notice in the darkness or simply to avoid the searing daytime heat of midsummer in the western desert. that date held

deep

significance for the

He must have known that

Saddam regime,

since

it

was

the eve of the anniversary of the victory over Iran in 1988, a victory in large part gained

by the

himself had founded. that at a

many

elite

Republican Guards divisions that he

The departing general may

also

have known

of the Iraqi ruling chque would be celebrating at a party

country house outside Baghdad.

OUT DF THE ASHES It

was

was a party that Kamel was fortunate

in

many

respects a rerun of

tlie

to miss.

night on the

island in the Tigris seven years before,

What happened

"Mother of Pigs"

when Uday had murdered

Kamel Hannah Jajo, his father's aide and pimp, in a fit of drunken rage. senior members of the regime present at this festivity was the riiler's half-brother Watban Ibrahim. Also present was Uday's cousin and boon companion Luai, the young man who had once had his arm broken by Saddam for kidnapping and beating up his school-

Among the

teacher.

There are various reports of what caused the party

to turn violent.

Ahmad quarreled with Luai Luai called Uday, who raced out to the party with

According to one account, Watban s son

and slapped his his

face.

submachine gun,

arriving at about three-thirty in the morning.

assert that Uday's angry arrival was prompted by the Watban had been speaking ill of him. In any event, his reaction was extreme. Bursting in on the festivities, he sprayed the room with gunfire. The hail of bullets hit Uncle Watban, severely wounding him in the leg, as well as killing six young women, gypsy dancers and

Other reports

news

that

singers considered essential that morning,

by

firing a rocket-propelled

Even

by

Tikritis for

any

social occasion. (Later

Ahmad retaliated with the feuding vigor of a true Tikriti

as Uday's victims

grenade

at Luai's father's house.)

were being transported

to the hospital or

morgue, Hussein Kamel and party were checking into the al-Amra Hotel in the center of Amman, the Jordanian Jordanian government

officials later

capital.

claimed that

his defection

came as a complete surprise. "Only Hussein Kamel and his brother knew what they were going to do," says Abdul Karim al-Kabariti, Jordanian foreign minister at the time. "We knew he had crossed the border, but

it

was not unusual

for an Iraqi official to enter Jor-

dan without giving us any information about what he was doing

had met Hushim immediately.

here." Al-Kabariti, a svelte, intelligent, former banker, sein

Kamel

"He

tried to impress

weapon.

The

It

a few years before and

was

all

on

had

disliked

me how anybody

could build a nuclear

a matter of will and funds and natural materials."

foreign minister only learned the astonishing reason for the

Iraqi general's return to Jordan

when King Hussein

called

him

to

the palace, where he found other senior ministers already assem-

DEATHS INTHE FAMILY bled.

the

The king

official in

he and

them

told

that Hussein

K^el

195

had

telephoned

just

charge of the royal court from the al-Amra to say that

his family

planned to seek

political

asylum

in Jordan.

The king was not being entirely forthcoming with his ministers. At some point before Kamel set off, he had contacted the Jordanian monarch and intimated what was afoot. The king in turn relayed a

CIA

cautious message to Washington that, in the words of a former

who was

official

happen"

privy to the message, "something big was going to

in Iraq.

Keeping the secret of Kamel s plans and welcoming him when he arrived was a critical decision for King Hussein.

He had allied his

He was

Iraq's clos-

country with

Saddam

during his war with Iran. Iraq was Jordan's biggest market.

He had

est friend in the

Arab world.

been a friendly neutral during the Gulf War. The long road between

Amman was

and Baghdad, down which Hussein Kamel had

Iraq's

The

only outlet to the world.

Palestinian origin.

just driven,

majority of Jordanians are of

They sympathized with Saddam Hussein's assault in the Arab world in 1991. They applauded

on the estabhshed order

Iraqi missiles fired at Israel.

For months, Saddam's picture deco-

Amman.

rated every shop and taxi in

Jordan had paid heavily for

its

friendship with Baghdad.

Most of

War

the 350,000 Palestinians in Kuwait, expelled after the Gulf

because Kuwaitis saw them

as pro-Iraqi,

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Gulf subsidized Jordan, tors in

became

hostile.

had moved

states,

to Jordan.

which had previously

The king had

told Jordanian edi-

1993 that "Saddam has broken our backs." The king had

ated his return to America's

initi-

good graces by signing a peace treaty

with Israel in 1994.

Now

old ally in Baghdad.

He told his

he decided to make a

final

break with his

ministers: "Things can't

be tolerated

Saddam anymore." Two days after the king had granted Kamel's request for political asylum, Uday and Ali Hassan al-Majid arrived in Amman demanding to see King Hussein. Hussein Kamel warned tlie Jordanians about the

with

possibly Ali.

He

murderous intentions of said:

"Don't

let his

might have something did not think he had

in his

his relatives, particularly his uncle

majesty shake hands with this man.

hand

that might kiU him."

much choice but to meet the two

He

King Hussein

Iraqi emissaries.

QUTDFTHEASHES

19e They asked this

was a

for the extradition of the defectors, but

lost cause.

—

bank card

must have known

Their main interests were in retrieving Kamels

evidently his fund-raising initiative prior to leaving had

been noticed

—

as well as in seeing

Raghad and Rina,

claimed had been brought to Jordan against their

turned them down.

He

said:

"My

whom

they

King Hussein

will.

daughters spend time with them.

They want to stay." He promised to look after them. Uday and Ali Hassan went back to Baghdad empty-handed. They had seen how King Hussein was using the opportunity offered by the Kamel brothers' defection to turn against Saddam. The king praised Hussein Kamel in an interview and said it was "the right time for change" in it

will

Iraq's leadership,

adding that

only be a change for the better."

"if

a change occurs

The new direction

in Jordan's

diplomatic allegiance was underlined by the fact that the king chose to

announce

his

new stance

in an interview with Yediot Aharanot,

an

newspaper. President Clinton phoned him to promise to

Israeli

defend Jordan against Iraqi

The

retaliation.

defection of Hussein

Kamel had caused an

international

Commentators around the world eagerly interpreted

sensation.

his

dramatic departure as a sign that Saddam's regime was a "sinking ship."

When,

after four days in seclusion, this erstwhile pillar of the

mysterious and frightening regime in Baghdad

appearance palaces,

it

at a press

made

his first pubfic

conference in the garden of one of the king's

indeed appeared that Saddam had gained a formidable

opponent. Dressed in a double-breasted gray pin-striped gave a resume of his career and declared:

He made clear that he was

the regime."

"We

suit,

he

are working to topple

speaking of a coup and not a

popular insurrection by appealing to "the entire army, Republican Guards, and Special Guard

officers."

He was

factual

and well

informed, accusing the regime of leading Iraq into "complete tion."

He

did not attack

of kinship."

any

secrets.

He said he would not "take He was not unimpressive,

"

who had been

in

Despite his

power too long to make sudden metamorphosis

Kamel was hardly leading

Saddam

member

likely

isola-

and his family personally "because responsibility for unveiling

but he seemed a

like a

man

good revolutionary.

into a critic of

Saddam,

ever to succeed as an opposition leader.

of the Iraqi regime until just days before, he

A

had

DEATHS shared in

its

IN

THE FAMILY

crimes. Jaundiced though Barzani was on the subject of

Hussein Kamel, he had a point when he

Kurds there are deep wounds.

Baghdad ing

agents.

.

.

How

.

said:

"Between him and the

a Kurdish delegation

he was the harshest

[in 1991],

them

When

in attacking

came

them and

to

call-

can the Shiites of Iraq deal with him

tomb of Imam Hussein bin Ah?" Kamel appealed to the security services and the army. But the place for him to lead such a coup was Baghdad. The very fact that he and his brother had fled to Amman showed that they did not really believe in a military

when he

attacked the

In calhng for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,

uprising.

Nevertheless, even

intelligence catch

nizations

if

he was not the man

to lead the overthrow of

and former master, Kamel represented a tremendous

his father-in-law

and Jordanian, Arab, and Western intelligence orga-

were eager

to speak to him.

"They wanted information and

"But it wasn't up to expectations. The them about hostages [who disappeared during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait]. The Saudis thought he would tell them about Iraqi plans. The Americans thought he would brief them about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. One could consider or wanted something in that either he didn't have the information

he provided

says Kabariti.

it,"

Kuwaitis thought he would

tell

—

return."

That was not entirely

true. Certainly, the arrogant general's inter-

view with the CIA did not go

well.

He

felt

insulted that the officers

him were not of high rank, nor did they speak Arabic. Instead, the CIA team had brought along an interpreter of Egyptian origin, who found Kamel s Tikriti accent difficult to undersent to interview

stand.

an

For their

idiot," as

part, the

agency

officers

one of their colleagues

he would return

to

concluded that he was

later recalled.

"just

"His plan was that

Baghdad behind the U.S. Army and Air Force.

End of subject." Another interviewer had better

luck. Rolf

Ekeus had

Hussein Kamel in June 1991, when the Iraqi was power.

On

first

at the height

met

of his

Kamel had rudely interrupted a meeting Iraq's more suave since then, Kamel had been in charge of the

that occasion,

between the Unscom chairman and some of diplomats. In the years

elaborate effort to obstruct

Unscom and conceal

as

much as possible

aUTOFTHEASHES

19S

Now

of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.

mer

were meeting under very

antagonists

Their

meeting

first

defection,

in

Amman,

began with a startUng

almost two weeks after Kamels

revelation.

the Iraqi looked carefully at the faces of the ting

on Ekeus's side of the

the two for-

different circumstances.

On

entering the room,

Unscom personnel

sit-

gaze settled on the

table. Finally his

Unscom chairman's Arabic interpreter. "Are you a Syrian?" he asked. The man admitted that he was. Kamel asked: "Is your name

When

Tanous?"

Kamel

the visibly nervous translator said this was correct,

"Get the fuck out of here. You have been working for

replied,

my own agents." As he man had been infiltrated into Unscom employment and had long provided much useful intelligence. Jordanian security officials monitoring the meeting were much amused. me.

I

refuse to be debriefed by one of

explained, the

Once

the Iraqi mole had been removed,

Kamel was anxious

to

be

accommodating. "We have been enemies before," he said to Ekeus.

"Now we meet to

as friends."

Before Ekeus could turn the discussion

weapons, Kamel wanted to complain about

Uday spent

his brother-in-law.

his life in bars, picking fights, drinking, chasing

women.

He, on the other hand, complained the general, worked long hours.

He was

a teetotaler and a family man.

The whole Saddam family, he Unscom inspec-

explained, squeezed by sanctions and violated by tions,

was

"full

of hatred. They are boiling with hatred."

Having gotten that off his interest.

He had been

chest,

surprised,

Unscom, something none of the the inspectors

first

Kamel turned he

to Ekeus's area of

said, at the effectiveness

Iraqi leadership

arrived. Ekeus, for his part,

marily in the methods employed by Kamel's

of

had expected when was interested

men

pri-

in their task

of

concealing weapons, materials, and documents from the intrusive searches of the

Unscom

team.

"One of my first questions was 'How did you do it?' " the Swedish later. "He was eventually quite forthcoming, and so were some of the officers who had come with him, even though it was hard for them to change" from the habits of secrecy about such diplomat recalled

matters ingrained in

Ekeus was being officers in the

all

Iraqi security officials.

discreet.

One in particular among those

Kamel party supplied the most important

al-Majid

information.

DEATHS INTHE FAMILY

199

Major Izz al-Din al-Majid was the Special Republican Guard in

whose Abu Ghraib

villa garden the priceless parts

Project 1728 had been buried in July 1991. As a

and

officer

tools

from

member of the ruhng

family and an officer in the elite security unit, Izz al-Din was one of

the select few chosen to

forbidden weapons and

move and

materials.

hide, out of

Unscom s

As such, he was able

interviewers with crucial insights into the

reach, the

to furnish the

way the concealment

sys-

tem functioned and who was involved. Kamels defection had in any case yielded a rich dividend for Ekeus even before the two men met in Amman. Three weeks prior to the flight of the Kamel brothers, Saddam Hussein had made a defiant speech in Baghdad in which he threatened that Iraq would cease all cooperation with Unscom if there were no progress in the Security Council toward the Lifting of sanctions. When Ekeus met Tariq Aziz in Baghdad just three days before the Mercedes convoy sped across the border, Aziz repeated the threat, adding that the deadline for the

Security Council to change

its

ways was the end of August. The deep-

voiced deputy prime minister also added

done research on succeeded

in

that,

while Iraq had indeed

biological warfare agents, the scientists

had never

producing them in a form suitable for use in a weapon.

This was too

much for Ekeus. "Of course you have," he interjected. cigar, his normal reaction when con-

Aziz took a deep puff on his fronted, then

fell

den, where you

On August Iraqi

back on a familiar defense. "Iraq

make

13, the

a plan and implement

it.

is

not fike Swe-

We are incompetent."

day after Hussein Kamel s press conference, the

government performed an abrupt and dramatic about-face.

Fearful that the traitor would earn

away their darkest

secrets, the

some reward

for himself by giving

government resolved to beat him

to the

punch.

who by this time had returned to New York, got an urgent message from General Amer Rashid, the brilliant British-trained engineer who had been acting as Kamels deputy in dealing with Unscom, asking Ekeus to come back to Baghdad as soon as possible. Ekeus,

Furthermore, wrote Rashid, "the government had ascertained that

General Hussein Kamel had been responsible for hiding important information on Iraq's prohibited programs from the commission and

IAEA by ordering the

Iraqi technical personnel not to disclose such

OUT DF THE ASHES information and also not to inform Mr. Tariq Aziz or General

Amer

of these instructions."

Ekeus returned

Baghdad, where he encountered Aziz, Rashid,

to

and other senior

officials

suddenly exuding goodwill and

all

promises of cooperation. Everything, they explained, had been the fault

The

of Hussein Kamel.

rest

of the Iraqi government had been

quite ignorant of his nefarious activities in concealing the forbidden

weapons programs. Henceforth Iraq would pursue a policy of full cooperation with Unscom and "good-neighborhness" with other countries. In addition, it was now admitted that Iraq had not only succeeded

manufacturing biological weapons but had actually

in

loaded them into 166 bombs and 25 al-Hussein missile warheads.

Nor was

that

all.

As he was about

to leave

Baghdad, Ekeus com-

plained that so far he had not seen a single document to back up interesting

all

this

new information. Within less than an hour, Ekeus got a call

from Rashid suggesting that on sanctions to

all

but

his

way

to the airport (closed

under

UN flights) he and his team should stop by a farm

belonging to Hussein Kamel, in a place called Haidar, where he would find "items of great interest."

That was putting

it

mildly. In a

locked

chicken shed, Ekeus found piles of metal and wooden boxes packed with over half a milHon documents as well as microfiches, computer

and photographs. Almost

disks,

abundance of

detail

all

of this treasure trove carried an

about the secret weapons programs, particularly

The Unscom group

the nuclear weapons effort.

carefully analyzing pictures of the farm taken

a high-flying carefully

Kamels

U-2 spy plane,

that the

purged of the most

files

concluded, after

on preceding days from

they had discovered had been

sensitive material in the twelve days since

flight.

Thanks

to the debriefings in Jordan

and the "chicken farm" doc-

uments, Ekeus and his team discovered fooled

later

them over the previous four

Samarrai s information on amplified, but they

had

1728 and a secret missile

how

years.

well the Iraqis

had

Not only was Wafiq

al-

VX and biological weapons confirmed and also learned for the first time of Project

test that

had taken place

in 1993.

They had

also learned of the invisible organization dedicated to outwitting

them

that they

came

to call the

"concealment mechanism."

Meanwhile, Ekeus reported on his

arrival in

Amman that there was

D E AT HSINTHEFAMILY "political panic" in

to Jordan. Hussein

to Jordan "there

Guard position They had never seen such a split in the

a Republican electrified.

militia were deployed Kamel himself said that since is not a single street in Baghdad without to search people." Ordinary Iraqis were

Baghdad. Uday's Fedayeen

on the road leading he had gone

ZOl

ruling family. "Peo-

ple held parties throughout Baghdad," says one of those

who

cele-

"They believed the regime was wobbling."

brated.

The most dangerous moment for Saddam was immediately after the defection. The defectors denied that they had organized a conspiracy while still in Iraq, but he could not be sure. He did not know how much support Hussein Kamel enjoyed in presidential security the Special Guard and the Republican Guard. After their flight, Hussein Kamel said he expected arrests and executions. But the regime must have had some confidence that he could not orchestrate a coup from Amman, since

it

did not cut the telephone link to Jordan.

Meanwhile, Kamel was rapidly removed from tant positions.

On

August

fired as industry minister

10,

it

his

many impor-

was announced that he had been

and director of miUtary industrialization.

A

week later, the Baath Party expelled him. More menacing for the exiles was the strength of the denunciations from Saddam Hussein and the al-Majid clan. In a wordy and elhptical speech on August 11, the Iraqi leader compared Hussein Kamel, successively, to Cain, who murdered Abel; to Judas, who betrayed Ghrist; to Croesus, the infamously avaricious king of

Abu Lahab, who had opposed his nephew, the Mohammed. Saddam said his son-in-law would be "stoned

ancient times; and to

Prophet

by

history"

and would do better

"to die than live in humiliation."

He

accused him of stealing several million dollars through front companies.

He

be

the mercy of his

at

predicted, not wholly wrongly, that Hussein

new

foreign masters and

them "without any argument or right of veto." Even more damning was a statement from signed by Hussein Kamel's uncle

Kamel to his

for treason against

life,

tribal law.

family,"

Saddam.

underlining, at the

"Although the

to

obey

the al-Majid clan,

Hassan al-Majid, denouncing

It also

carried a very direct threat

same time, how seriously

traitor

wrote the al-Majids,

7\li

Kamel would

would have

Iraqis

still

took

Hussein Kamel belongs to an Iraqi

"this small family within Iraq

denounces

OUT OF THE ASHES his

cowardly

act."

They

called for his punishment. His relatives for-

mally announced that they would not seek vengeance against anybody

who

killed

him, saying

flatly:

permit with impunity the

The

Iraqi press

"tolerance" of

"His family has unanimously decided to

spilling

of blood."

denounced the

traitor for taking

Saddam Hussein and

for stealing

money. Most of the

abuse was crude, but the media did publish one

aimed

at

showing up Hussein Kamel

phant. This was a letter he had sent

when

Iraqi troops

advantage of the

telling

as a poorly

document,

educated syco-

Saddam on October

13, 1994,

were withdrawing from the border with Kuwait

after a mini-crisis with the

United

States. It

is

in

ungrammatical

Arabic and contains several spelling mistakes.

The note reads: "Dear What is important is the world mentioning your name everyday. Our hope is being not important that sanctions be

Sir, It is

to see

materialized.

May God be

lifted.

with your excellency and our souls are

nothing before your excellency."

Meanwhile, Watban was in the

were

was a

fighting to save his leg. It

which the government

who was

He was

also tending

still

where Cuban doctors measure of the rigor with

hospital,

controlled Iraq that an Iraqi specialist

Watban had

to return every night to prison.

serving a six-month sentence for illegally erecting a televi-

sion satellite dish to

watch foreign broadcasts.

Uday s murderous unmentioned

assault

on

his uncle

in the Iraqi media,

and the gypsy dancers went

but for the

first

on the receiving end of official and public abuse.

time, the prince

Mohammed

was

Said

al-

Sahhaf, the Iraqi foreign minister, said he was "unfit to govern."

Barzan, in Geneva, coupled

lems come from people

Uday with Hussein Kamel,

who do

saying: "Prob-

not appreciate what their true size

is.

The notion of inheriting power is not acceptable in Iraq. People do not accept Uday or Hussein Kamel. Neither of them has the legitimacy to govern."

Even Saddam was

distancing himself, at least publicly, from

and clamping down on reelected

Uday

as

its

his empire.

head by 155

confining himself to sports.

room

The

The

Uday

Iraqi Football Association

to 0, but officials said

he would be

Iraqi leader declared there

in Iraq "for a state within a state." Iraqi security raided

Olympic headquarters and freed three people from

was no

Udays

his private

jail.

DEATHS INTHE FAMILY

203

One street rumor, possibly inspired by the government itself, told how Saddam had gone

to his son's

owned

cover that his son

immense

private garage.

Shocked

to dis-

luxury cars, he was alleged to have

sixty

ordered his guards to sprinkle petrol over the vehicles and set them alight.

show that he was still in Watban by Uday and the defection of control despite the shooting of Hussein Kamel. The government announced tliat a referendum would be held on October 15 in which 8 million Iraqis would vote on the question: "Do you agree that Saddam Hussein should be presi-

Saddam adopted an

aggressive strategy to

dent of Iraq?" While the result was not in doubt, the campaign focused attention on the Iraqi leader, health,

though he dyed

Hundreds of foreign

his

still

only fifty-eight and in good

mustache and suffered from back

journalists

were invited

more than had been allowed into the country Even

if

their coverage

government had a

at

to

pains.

watch the voting,

any time since 1991.

was unsympathetic, they could see that the

tight

hold on power everywhere in Iraq except

Kurdistan.

The referendum campaign, organized with by the Baath Party organization,

also

dam s personality cult. "O lofty Hassan al-Majid. "By God we have

saw a further exaltation of Sad-

mountain!

ficult

relentless efficiency

O glory of Iraq!" wrote Ali

always found you in the most dif-

conditions a roaring lion and courageous horseman, one of the

few true men." The

deification of

At one polling station

Saddam was evident

in the Arafa

district

of the

all

oil city

over Iraq. of Kirkuk,

there were thirteen pictures of the Iraqi leader on the walls.

He was

portrayed in different guises, such as an Arab sheikh, a baggytrousered Kurd, and a white-suited businessman.

A

fourteenth pic-

ture of the leader was stuck to the ballot box. In a local primary school, there letters

was a special board on which children had stuck love

and birthday cards

to the Iraqi leader. It faced a large

mural

depicting an Iraqi soldier in the act of repeating the words of his leader: "Victory

is

sweet."

Saddam won 99.96 percent of the vote. It was the first such vote when the British had organized an equally spurious poll

since 1921,

showing that 96 percent of Iraqis wanted Faisal

were no

I

as their king.

alternative candidates in either 1921 or 1995.

There

Saddam had

a

OUT DF THE ASHES further objective.

By curbing Uday and holding

a

referendum under

the auspices of the party, he was saying, as one diplomat in

put

that "in future,

it,

the Revolution

government

Command

be

will

in the

Baghdad

hands of bodies

like

Council and the Baath Party and not the

inner family."

The inner

command

family did not lose power.

Qusay

rapidly

assumed

The

of the important offices vacated by Hussein Kamel.

essential levers of power

were

still

the carrot and a very brutal

But Saddam had always shown an uncanny

gift for

stick.

balancing the

administration of Iraq between loyal subordinates chosen for their

unquestioning loyalty experts.

—usually family members—and highly

Often he dispensed mercy

as a reward, all the

skilled

more wel-

come to the recipients because it was unexpected. For example, when Kamel left, his highly intelligent and capable deputy. General Amer Rashid, must have felt extremely nervous. His proximity to the departed traitor would certainly have laid

and the tender mercies of Qusay s

dam promoted him

him open

interrogators. But, instead, Sad-

Kamel's old job of dealing with Unscom. In addition,

down

the millions of dollars

Saddam befieved Hussein Kamel had stolen. Hussein Kamel could not have predicted one flight

from

Iraq. His arrival in

The

pohtical isolation of Iraq

come out

was complete. In of

Amman

serious conse-

Amman gave Jordan an

excellent opportunity to switch decisively into the

the regime would

him Rashid was

to the post of oil minister as well as giving

entrusted with the task of trying to track

quence of his

to suspicion

and

American camp.

future, plots against

not, as hitherto, Iraqi

Kurdistan.

In

Amman, Hussein Kamel was

sures of exile. to a

not responding well to the pres-

The king had lent him

former wife who had died

there with Raghad, with

whom

a

house that had once belonged

in a helicopter crash.

Kamel

lived

he was getting on badly, and their

three children, along with his brother, Rina, and their two children.

He

only once went out into the city

hospital.

owned

He was bored and

lonely.

—

for a medical

checkup

in the

AHa, the king's eldest daughter,

the neighboring palace in the royal compound. She found

the Kamels always walking through her garden to borrow videos.

The

exiled couple

would then hang around

in

her house for hours.

D E AT HSINTHEFAMILY

ZDS

To escape their company, she finally fled to one of her other houses in Palm Beach, Florida. The opposition, mainly based in London and northern Iraq, spumed Hussein Kamel. His appeal to the elite units of the Iraqi army to support

him had not produced

a single mutiny. After a

few months,

foreign intelligence services lost interest in debriefing him. nians,

who had now

settled

on the

exiled opposition

The Jorda-

group Iraqi

down Saddam, Kamels' presence in Amman.

National Accord as their chosen instrument to bring

were no longer enthusiastic about the

King Hussein pointedly invited Raghad and Rina

to dinner, but not

their husbands.

One

of the few people

who came

was Rolf Ekeus,

to call

still

win-

on the weapons programs. He found the sad Kamels fortunes mirrored in his surroundings. During their meetings, the house had been a hive of activity. The phones

kling out information

decline in early

never stopped, fax machines spat out endless messages, aides and emissaries bustled in air

and

out.

Now Kamel

sat alone.

A

single

broken

conditioner sent out a continuous rasping noise. There was a layer

of dust everywhere and the phone never rang.

Hussein Kamel did use the telephone to Samarrai who, following the debacle of the 1995, had hurriedly

made

his

talk to

INC

General Wafiq

offensive in

way from Kurdistan

to

where he enjoyed the protection and sponsorship of the October,

Kamel was considering

faced a problem.

When he

he was told that he and

his

a

move

al-

March

Damascus,

By Here he

Syrians.

to Syria himself.

asked King Hussein for permission to go, brother were free to travel to Syria, but

The Idng had promised Uday in my daughters." The Jordanians had already aroused the dangerous ire of Saddam Hussein by accepting Kamel and swinging into the American orbit. They did not want to provoke Saddam any further by sending the Iraqi rulers own

without their wives and children.

August that "Saddam s daughters are

daughters into the custody of his most hated

Hafez al-Assad. The king

said:

"The

girls will

rival,

Syrian president

have to stay here."

Relations between the Iraqi exiles and their Jordanian hosts

by the montli. On January 4, 1996, Kabariti gave an Amman newspaper Dustur in which he said that HusKamel was "most welcome when he came. When he wishes to

became

frostier

interview to the sein

OUT OF THE ASHES

ZOe leave,

we will treat him the same way." The general made a brief effort

to establish himself as the leader of

an opposition group, to be called

the "Higher Council for the Salvation of Iraq."

Its

intended to appeal to the Sunni estabHshment in Iraq.

dam

It

program was opposed Sad-

Hussein, but renounced foreign aid to get rid of him.

would be no witch-hunt

that there

promised

after

elections, but not federalism.

rights within a unified Iraq.

the higher council or

Abdul Karim

its

he was overthrown and

Kurds would get their natural

Nobody showed

the slightest interest in

program.

Kabariti,

beginning of February,

who became prime minister of Jordan at the

says, kindly, that

Hussein Kamel's problem was

not stupidity, but that "he could not do without power." to giving orders

and seeing them carried

out.

Even

Others,

He was

his first

appealing for the support of the Iraqi army sounds like a officer giving

pledged

It

used

speech

commanding

an order rather than a politician looking for support.

who came to know Kamel at least as well as Kabariti, were less abifities. "He had a reputation as an

impressed by his intelligence and excellent manager, based

on

his

work with the Republican Guards and

other things," said Rolf Ekeus. "But the test of a good manager ability to

operate with

finite resources, to

operated simply by means of ness.

is

his

decide on options. Kamel

and

infinite resources

infinite ruthless-

Otherwise he was an extremely stupid man."

One

incident in particular brought

diminished establish

status.

home

to the general his

He had begun to criticize King Hussein's plans to anti-Iraq front. He praised some minor

a pan-Arab,

reforms in Baghdad. Nayef Tawarah, the editor of the

Amman

Kamel of his

some of

newspaper

Bilat, told

comments

his

critical

him. Reverting to a

threatened to

kill

told the journalist,

intention of publishing

of King Hussein.

mode

Tawarah.

who was

The

Iraqi

wanted

to stop

of behavior customary in Baghdad, he "I will cut

you up piece by piece," he

taping the conversation.

Tawarah, a friend of Kabariti s, announced that he was going to

The Jordanian government told Kamel he would have to stand trial. Kamel riposted to Kabariti that the journalists action was "inconceivable." The Jordanian minister piously observed that "We sue.

are

all

recalls:

living

"He

under the law

in Jordan." Kabariti, with a certain glee,

really couldn't believe

it.

His face went pale, in

fact, yel-

THE FA M

D E AT H S IN

He

low.

I

207

LY

clutched a pillow to his stomach. iTe kept repeating, 'This

is

unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable.'

Saddam had predicted immediately after Hussein Kamel's flight that his newfound friends would suck him dry of information "until he is burnt out and then throw him into the road." Now he set to work with chilling skill to seduce Kamel into returning. He sent assurances through Kamel's father and to Raghad, through her mother, Sajida,

On

that the defectors could return in safety to Baghdad.

occasion, he called

Kamel

at least

one

directly with assurances that the prodigal

"Do you think I could harm the Saddam with dramatic sincerity. Unbelievably, Kamel began to take him seriously. There were prolonged negotiations. Baghdad was obsessed by the belief that Kamel had built up an enormous fortune abroad through commissions from when he had been in charge of Iraqi milson-in-law need fear no repercussions. father of

itary

my

grandchildren?" asked

procurement. Barzan gave a precise

figure.

He

said:

"Between

1985 and 1995, he controlled seventy-three percent of Iraq's funds."

When Uday and Ali

Hassan al-Majid

when

Amman

they

came

to

trouble of canceling

diverted Hussein

him made

On

six

it.

19,

to the

specific threats to kill

earlier.

Hussein Kamel sent a formal

in-law asking about his return.

response was positive." Not once,

bank card

went

These negotiations about money may have

Kamel from considering the

months

Februaiy

failed to retrieve his

after his defection, they

all

He

letter to his father-

told reporters that "the initial

his family

agreed with his decision. For

Saddam Kamel, who had made little impact on anybody in his six

months out of Iraq, protested vigorously. 'Tou donkey," he reportedly shouted

at his brother.

In reply, Hussein

come

'Tou want us to go back to our deaths."

Kamel pulled out

and

said,

"You

back." Izz al-Din al-Majid called a Jordanian intelligence

cial

from Turkey, where he was

will

be

them

his pistol

killed,"

he said

visiting.

plaintively.

"What about

The Jordanians

will offi-

my kids? They

told

him

to

send

a fax saying he did not want his children to go back to Bagh-

dad. Nothing arrived. resignedly: "Let

When

them go

they spoke with him again, he said

back. Leave

it

to

God."

Kamel's decision to return, knowing what he did about his fatherin-law's attitude to

anyone who betrayed him, has long mystified even

OUT OF THE ASHES

ZaS

those witli only a passing interest in Iraq and

A

who spoke

its

malignant ruling fam-

him near the end of his brief exile suggests that Kamel was "driven mad" by King Hussein and his advisers. In parily.

friend

the decision to

ticular,

to

let

the journalist's lawsuit go forward convinced

the distracted general that the king intended to

my relatives

by

killed

than to rot in a Jordanian

The Jordanians did have some King Hussein called Kabariti

20,

been

to the Iraqi

—a

embassy

him

let

he

said.

to say that

On

leave?" asked the king. "Let

him

go,"

February

Hussein Kamel had

ambassadors residence and was now

at

Amman.

the Iraqi "Shall

answered the

be a great reUef." By now, Hussein Kamel and

were loading

their belongings into the

had brought them

that

him. "Better to be

last-minute qualms.

kitsch Babylonian building in central

cian. "It will tives

jail

jail,"

to

Amman seven

we

politi-

his rela-

same Mercedes sedans

months before.

Hussein Kamel himself must have had misgivings about the wis-

dom

of his actions during the four-hour drive through the stony

desert of eastern Jordan.

It is

a depressing road, narrow and danger-

Amman

ous because of the large trucks traveling between

Baghdad. Every half hour he said to the

The

a piss."

Kamel would up

his

"get out and pace

mind, but he would not

It is

driver: "Stop.

driver reported later that he

not clear

I

want

and

to take

would stop and Hussein

up and down

as if

he were making

piss."

when Hussein Kamel and his brother realized that The Iraqi government said that on his arrival

they were going to die. at

the border at Trebeil "the leadership took a decision to accept his

More ominously, Uday arrest the Kamel brothers, but

appeal ... to return as an ordinary citizen."

was waiting he took

He did not try to

for him.

his sisters

Raghad and Rina, with

their children, into his

motorcade.

From watching

the other side of the border, a Jordanian security closely,

with an open line to the kings palace in

moment he saw Kamel being

back: "Khallas"— "He's

Left to their to a

own

official

was

Amman. The

separated from his family he reported

finished."

devices for the time being, the brothers drove

house they owned

in Tikrit.

When they arrived, they found their

al-Majid relatives angry and threatening. Not daring to spend the night there, they drove south along the Tigris to Baghdad, to the

D E AT HSINTHEFAMILY house of their

sister,

ZDS

who, along with her children, had returned

with them despite the misgivings of her husband, Izz al-Din. Here they were joined by their father, and Hakim, their youngest brother.

Then came

summons

a

to the presidential palace. Uday's friend

Abbas Jenabi, the editor of Babel,

dam demanded that the brothers them on the

have two

spot,

one of tlie family threatened to

but Saddam intervened, saying they should

days to reconsider.

announced

recounted that an angry Sad-

documents immediately divorc-

sign

When they refused,

ing his daughters.

shoot

later

On

February 23, Uday's television station

Raghad and Rina had divorced

that

The Saddam

their husbands.

language of the announcement showed that Hussein and could expect

had

mercy.

little

It

claimed, as

daughters had been brought to

had

Uday and Ali Hassan al-Majid earlier, that Saddams two

King Hussein seven months

said to

told the king that "they

failed traitors." It

were "refusing

Amman against their will.

It

said they

had been deceived and misled by two

concluded by announcing that Raghad and Rina

to stay married to

men who

betrayed

homeland,

tlie

the trust, and the lofty values of their noble family and kinfolk."

By now Hussein Kamel must have known there was no Along with in

his father

Baghdad.

A

and two brothers, he waited

squad of forty

men from

escape.

in his sisters villa

the presidential guard, of

which Hussein and Saddam had once both been members,

rounded the house. Given that Saddam had recruited guards from close relatives,

ensure that they were

all

it

would not have been

members of

his

sur-

body-

difficult to

the al-Majid family.

They

were led by Ah Hassan al-Majid himself. In bizarre deference to the proprieties of tribal feuding, the assault party sent

ammunition

ahead a Honda

filled with automatic weapons and Kamel family to defend themselves with. It fight. Uday and Qusay watched the proceedings

for the

would be a fair from a car parked nearby.

When

the assault began, Hussein, Saddam, and

fought back fiercely from the house. hours, during which time the attackers.

When

The

battle

Haldm Kamel

went on

Kamels succeeded

for thirteen

in kilfing

two of the

they ran out of ammunition, Hussein Kamel,

who

had already been wounded, came staggering out of the house and shouted: "Kill me, but not them."

He was

shot dead.

Saddam Kamel

OUT OF THE ASHES was

hit

of the

and

killed

by a rocket grenade

san al-Majid stood over his

head, saying: "This

is

When the

fired

from the balcony

at the

sister,

was

to

all

those

who

and her

over, Ali

last

Has-

shot in the

deal with the

King Hussein). According

to

time in Baghdad, the attackers then put

in the eyes of the

Babel TV, Uday's

fighting

nephew and gave him one

what happens

(a reference to the diminutive

one story current

meat hooks

he

His father, Kamel Hassan al-Majid, his

villa.

children died inside the house.

midget"

as

dead brothers and dragged them away.

station, got the

scoop on what had happened.

quoted a spokesman from die Interior Ministry

as saying that "a

It

num-

ber of young people from the Majid family" had killed the three Kamel brotliers.

The

official Line

them, but not their own

ment

saying:

"We have

was that the

tribe.

state

might have pardoned

Later the al-Majid clan put out a state-

cut off the treacherous branch from our noble

family tree. Your amnesty does not obliterate the right of our family to

impose the necessary punishment." Saddam himself said

later

of the

"Had they asked me, I would have prevented them, but it was good that they did not." The next day, Uday, wearing al-Majid family's actions,

tribal robes,

walked

in the state funeral procession of tlie al-Majid

Kamel house. Raghad and Rina, once Saddam s favorite children, never forgave him for the killing of their husbands. They assumed he had orchestrated the attack by the al-Majid clan. They continued to live with clansmen

killed in the battle at the

their five children in a family

house

in Tikrit,

wearing black, and refusing to see any

never going out, always

member of their

family apart

from their mother.

Saddam had

survived what might at

first

have been a crippling

Hussein Kamel s defection had signaled a defin-

blow

to his regime.

itive

crack in the inner circle that ruled Iraq, and yet the apostate

son-in-law had been neutralized and ultimately eliminated with

comparative ease. Yet the dramatic episode of Hussein Kamel's flight had shifted the axis of the Western intelligence agencies working to bring

Saddam.

Now

few months they were destroy him.

down

they were working from Jordan, and over the next to

make

their

most determined bid so

far to

NINE

"Bring

Me

the Head of

Saddam Hussein"

The amateur cameraman focused on the dark-suited man with a scraggly mustache sitting behind the paper-strewn desk. It

was

midwinter, and the Zagros Mountains of northern Iraq, visible

through the window behind the desk, were topped with snow. Just outside, traffic thronged the busy street in

downtown Sulaimaniya,

the capital of eastern Kurdistan. Staring fixedly into the lens, his

Abu Amneh a terrorist bomber on the

rodenthke face showing signs of extreme nervousness,

al-Khadami began to recount

his career as

CIA payroll.

No one had

bomb blasts that One explosion had gone a mosque. A car bomb outside the offices

ever claimed responsibility for the

echoed around Baghdad

in

off in a cinema, another in

1994 and 1995.

wounded a large number of passersby and killed a child. Altogether, the bombs had killed as many as a hundred civilians. As we have seen, Uday put the blasts to political use, publicizing them as a means of undermining his uncle, interior minister Watban Ibrahim. Now, on January 25, of al-Jumhuriya, the Baath Party newspaper, had

DUT OF THE ASHES Amneh had

1996,

brought the video camera to

his office to

record

the history of his role in the lethal blasts.

For the next hour and a light cigarettes, occasionally

paymaster to

half,

he talked

pausing only to

steadily,

holding up operational orders from his This was not a confession by a

illustrate the story.

repentant murderer, but a rambling complaint that his work for the

cause had been impeded by lack of explosives and money.

The bombings, claimed Amneh, had been planned and executed He was referring to Adnan Nuri, the former general in Saddam s army who had been recruited by the CIA in 1992 to work directly for the agency. Since that time, Nuri had risen to comon the orders of "Adnan."

mand

the operations of the opposition Iraqi National Accord in Kur-

distan.

His mission, as mandated by the CIA, was to work on prepara-

coup inside the

tions for a

Iraqi military that would, finally, eliminate

Saddam. Nuri had recruited

Amneh from

a

of the INC.

official

tion

by

tlie

He claimed his

in Salaliudin,

jail

been incarcerated by Massoud Barzani s

release

was due to direct interven-

CIA, quoting Nuri s boast that he "made the American

Washington telephone Massoud Barzani prison.'"

where he had

KDP for attempting to kill an

Once

freed,

to say 'Let

Amneh

in

out of

he was ordered to move from Salaliudin to

Sulaimaniya and set to work. But, in time, he came to suspect that

Nuri was, dad.

in fact,

He was

an Iraqi agent intent on handing him over to Bagh-

therefore making the tape to alert the leadership of the

Iraqi National Accord to what he perceived as the perfidy of their rep-

resentative in Kurdistan.

The aim of the bombing campaign, by Amneh s impress Nuri s sponsors at the nization they were funding.

To

CIA with

account, was to

the capabilities of the orga-

that end, the agent

was commissioned

not only to organize the planting of bombs but also the distribution of leaflets in the streets

ganda at

in the heart of

of Baghdad. Handing out opposition propa-

Saddam s

capital

would be a

risky undertaking

the best of times, but the dangers were magnified by Nuri s insis-

tence that the distribution be recorded on camera as proof that the leaflets

had not simply been dumped. "Those

leaflets,"

complained

Amneh as he held up one such picture, "cost us more than a bomb. A bomb somebody just takes it and leaves it. Leaflets need two people:

—

"BRING ME THE HEAD OF SADDAM HUSSEIN" one to take photographs and the other to hand out the Despite such precautions, fretting that "the

Americans

Amneh

213

leaflets."

described Nuri as continually

Whether bomber s comshort changed him

will cut off financial aid to us."

or not Nuri s funding was curtailed, the burden of the plaint

concerned the way

his superior continually

on pay and expenses. "We blew up a car and we were supposed two thousand at

dollars,

one point, going on

to get

but Adnan gave us one thousand," he grumbled to gripe that at a supply

dump meant to contain

two tons of explosives he had been given only a hundred pounds, the

He had not been able to buy a car or pay the dozen men on his team. On one occadump's custodian claiming that the

sion,

rest

had been

stolen.

Nuri had paid him with dollars that turned out to be counterfeit.

Despite his position as a subcontractor for the richest intelligence

agency in the world, he "had to buy clocks turn

them

From

in the

into timers."

the evidence of the tape,

aware of their agent's role

in the

it

Baghdad bombings and had even

from the Americans that he was "too much a

Amneh

cited criticism

but observed

terrorist,"

"Saddam Hussein has ruined the whole

anybody say we are

CIA was well

appeared that the

expressed some reservations. At one point,

that

souk [market] and

country, so

how can

terrorists?"

Rarely had a foot soldier in a covert operation been so voluntarily

forthcoming about his work. Only once, he claimed, had he refused

an assignment from Nuri. Soon after starting work, he had been asked to

kill

Ahmad

Chalabi, leader of the other opposition group

supported and funded by the CIA. Nuri had suggested using a

booby-trapped car for the purpose, a proposal have declined on the grounds that

—"You can say he

tyr

is

this

a thief, doesn't

Amneh

claimed to

would make Chalabi a mar-

know how

to

mixes with the wrong kind of people, but none of this

work

well, or

justifies killing

him," and besides, "there will be Americans there."

Someone lacked

his sense of

moral discrimination.

On

October

31, 1995, a massive blast ripped apart one of the headquarters build-

ings used

by the

Iraqi National

Congress in Salahudin. Twenty-eight

people (though not Chalabi or any Americans) were ing the

KDP,

INC

all

killed, includ-

The CIA, as well as the INC and the opened investigations. The Americans appropriated some security chief.

UT OF THE ASHES

bomb

fragments from the scene of the

but refused to divulge

blast,

any of their conclusions. The KDP, however,

who,

individuals

they were

members

bomb under

the

swiftly arrested three

after severe interrogation, eventually

claimed that

of the Iraqi National Accord and had planted

Adnan

orders from

Nuri.

Amneh

repeated the

accusation of Nuri s culpability on his tape.

Since the victims and the alleged perpetrators of this savage attack

were both sponsored and subsidized by the CIA (no one sug-

gested that the Americans themselves were behind

it), it

was hardly

mute on the results of its own The episode was even more embarrassing in view of the fact that the Accord was gaining favor among many senior agency officials as the more useful tool to deploy against Saddam surprising that the agency remained

investigation.

even

as their rivals for the CIA's affections lost favor.

The debacle of die INC s offensive in March 1995 had caused great powerful circles

irritation in

delayed.

A month

at Langley.

after the offensive,

Punishment was not long

York Times the previously secret fact that the thus removing Chalabi s

roll,

fig leaf

New INC was on the CIA pay-

somebody leaked

to the

of respectable independence and

thereby creating a furor in northern Iraq. In May, Chalabi was sum-

moned

to a

meeting

at

the

CIA

station in

London

at

which

his high-

level detractors in the

agency planned to give him a savage dressing-

down

the offensive without proper authorization.

for launching

However, he

still

had friends and supporters

fered informed advice on tell

them, 1 didn't do

it

in the agency,

how to deal with the angry bureaucrats. and

I

won't do

it

again,' "

these pro-Chalabi partisans. "Bureaucrats in the ing with

tlieir

who prof"Just

counseled one of

CIA are used to deal-

superiors, inferiors, people of the

same

rank,

and

bureaucrats in other agencies," this cynical veteran of covert operations later explained.

"They are not used

to dealing with

someone

like

Ahmad who is capable of saying, 'Fuck you.' So the big meeting ended Ahmad just getting a slap on the wrist."

with

Facing the

chill

down his accusers may have been satisfying for Chalabi, but

from Washington only got

London, orders were

colder. After the

issued, apparently

from

tlie

May encounter in

White House

itself,

INC leader was persona non grata at CIA headquarters. Since the agency was still sending teams to work with the INC in Salahudin, that the

"BRING ME THE HEAD OF SADDAM HUSSEIN" seemed somewhat absurd, and

this

to

evade the ban on

Chalabi's supporters

215

maneuvered

his visits.

INC

Suspicions that the devastating attack on the

in

October had

been carried out by agents of the Accord was a dramatic and

CIA

extreme symptom of a widening spHt within the ingly,

what had once been a

relatively

itself.

Increas-

harmonious operation was

sphtting into two partisan groups, the devotees of Chalabi and the

INC, and those who believed

and glowing prospects

in the efficacy

of lyad Alawi and the Iraqi National Accord.

known

It

was a phenomenon

as "clientism."

who had

"Things got really bad," recalled Warren Marik,

CIA team

first

"I

to Salahudin

realized that clientism

and was very much

in the

led the

Chalabi camp.

was out of control when

I

saw some

[Accord supporters] in the [CIA's] Iraq office challenge and scoff the head of the office,

between the two

sides. I

who was

at

only trying to keep a balance

suspected that they thought they could get

it because they had a direct line to someone in the White House who was backing the 'zipless coup' idea." The headquarters of the Accord was in London, which was why lyad Alawi's supporters were concentrated in the CIA's London sta-

away with

tion,

while those agency officers

loyal to

Ahmad

Chalabi and the

clustered in the Iraq operations office at Langley

even there the in

still

—though

INC were

lines

were sharply divided. The

battle that

was fought

Kurdish mountain towns with bombs continued across the Atlantic,

but

now was

fought with angry classified cables.

On

one occasion,

for

example, lyad Alawi reported to his friends in the station that Chalabi

had bounced a check. "London sent angry messages 'Chalabi is

is

bouncing checks, what has he done with

all

to Washington.

the money, this

a scandal, etc., etc.,'" recalled Marik. "I said, 'Hold on,

check.'

I

because

called I

Ahmad, who

said, 'It didn't

didn't trust the vendor.' I

bounce,

checked

it

out,

I

let's

see the

stopped payment

and it was indeed a

stopped payment." Despite such small victories, the balance of power was against Chalabi.

He was

in

bad odor because of the

and the eager enthusiasm from the upper

tilted

failed offensive

levels of the

agency for a

quick solution. In any case, London had an additional advantage in the internal dispute because in the mid-1990s the station chiefs

aUTQFTHEASHES

216 were

influential

men who had

previously occupied very important

posts. "Basically," explained Marik, "the

screwup was because of

cir-

cumstances. Normally London

is not so important. The station chief some superannuated guy near retirement. But on this occasion, London was involved to a great extent because of the British involvement with Alawi. Second, it so happened that London

is

usually

was headed

Tom

time by these eight-hundred-pound

at that

Twetton, an

ex-DDO

gorillas,

[deputy director of operations], and Jack

DDO.

Devine, an ex-acting

"So the whole thing got subsumed in vicious bureaucratic

battles.

Faxes flying back and forth about Ahmad's check, rather than thinking about getting rid of

On the Bob

door frame

Mattingly,

who

Saddam Hussein."

at the Iraq

illustrated with a quotation

after his

operation s group offices at Langley,

took over die group in late 1994, hung a banner

appointment

as

from a

letter written

head of the

by Winston ChurchiU

British Colonial Office, with

some

misgivings," Churchill

had

declared, "about the political consequences to myself of taking on

my

responsibility for Iraq, in 1921. "I feel

shoulders the burden and odium of the Mesopotamia entanglement."

As internal

and

relations inside the

factionalized, a

agency grew increasingly bitter

new and weighty factor appeared on

Coincidental with the INC's

March 1995

the scene.

offensive, President

Clinton nominated John M. Deutch to be the director of the CIA.

Woolsey, undermined by the fallout from his handling of the affair,

had resigned

in

Ames

January and two prospective replacements

had successively self-destructed tions about their private lives.

in the face of inquiries

and revela-

Deutch, the former provost of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a highly intelligent man.

He was

also highly ambitious, having only reluctantly

agreed to

leave his powerful post of deputy secretary of defense,

where he

supervised the disbursement of over $250 billion a year, to take over the CIA. His eyes, according to

many both

inside

and outside the

agency, were firmly set on achieving a lifelong goal of becoming secretary of defense.

An

impressive performance at the

him in that quest. The new director was not

universally popular

CIA would

among

aid

his staff.

"BRING ME THE HEAD OF SADDAM HUSSEIN" among whom

his

Pentagon ambitions were*ho

be a rule against anyone running the stepping-stone,"

one of

"There should

CIA who wants

to use

it

as a

from the agency sourly

detractors

his

secret.

Z1V

remarked.

Deutch,

If

who

formally took over the

impress senior subordinates, procated.

He made

it

clear that

and was

and professionalism,

CIA

officers to their faces

gon.

"He would be

officer

walked

brains here,'

"

in,

it is

in a

CIA

May, did not

in

say that the feeling was reci-

fair to

he had

regard for their

little

in the habit of unfavorably

with his former colleagues

Deutch would

at

CIA people and

meeting with

say: 'At last

skills

comparing the Penta-

if

a military

we've got someone with

CIA official. "Every 'How does this improve

asserted one former very senior

finding that

Deutch

my chances

of becoming SecDef?'

signed, he

was thinking

"Deutch mistrusted people, misunderstood

things,"

recalled

another detractor. "He was most in need of what he was least likely

—subordinates who would

to seek

tell

him

his plans

were a bad

idea."

The new CIA

chief had promised, on taking office, that he

"clean house" at the agency. Accordingly,

new

would

faces appeared in

many key positions. Ted Price, who had done his best to hang on in wake of the Ames disaster, finally left the office of deputy director for Operations and was replaced by David Cohen, who had the

spent most of his career on the intelligence analysis side of the agency. Like his master,

among old hands

Cohen did not

ous experience had been the

who had

cans

our

story,

was

Anderson

left in

where

his only previ-

task of debriefing Ameri-

The Near East

Division, central to

the hands of Steve Richter, a graduate of the division,

in January. Richter

ters, possibly

humdrum

traveled abroad.

counterterrorism

agency's

inspire universal confidence

in the operations directorate,

because of

ill

who had succeeded Frank

was not highly regarded

in

all

quar-

feehngs arising out of a dark and

highly secret episode back in 1988

when

still

the CIA's entire spy net-

work

in Iran

tions.

(An internal inquiry absolved Richter of any responsibility for

had been rounded up, with many subsequent execu-

the disaster.)

Most

significantly of

all,

Deutch selected

as his

deputy director

aUTaFTHEASHES

Z1B

former congressional

and

NSC intelligence

tlie

affable

tor

George Tenet, who had learned much about covert operations

staffer

without ever acquiring any direct experience. Thus the

direc-

man who

while overseeing inteUigence on the National Security Council staff

had consistently promoted the notion of a CIA-backed in

Baghdad

command

at

Several

was now high up

as a viable option

military

coup

in the direct chain of

the agency.

CIA

officials

formerly engaged on the Iraq operation

agree that Deutch s arrival at Langley coincided with a heightened

Saddam Hussein on

sense of urgency regarding the elimination of

"the seventh floor," site of the office of the director. After reviewing

new management should be made tighter and

the record of the Iraq operation to date, Deutch s

team concluded that the Iraq operation

more focused on the

single objective of overthrowing the Iraqi

more general changes to the Iraqi to the management of Pentagon weapons programs, Deutch decreed "milestones," scheduled leader, without worrying about

common

regime. Adopting procedures

points of progress toward the ultimate objective of the Iraqi leaders downfall. If any of the newly

promoted

their master's eagerness to take

officials

had doubts about

on the burden of "the Mesopotamia

entanglement," they kept quiet. "Deutch recruited subordinates

who

did not like to get yelled

In truth,

it

seemed

at,"

observes one retired

a propitious

moment

Saddam. The new team had hardly

to

official.

push forward against

settled in at Langley at the

when King Hussein sent his cautious momentous developments in Iraq, followed

beginning of August 1995 report of imminent and

soon after by the dramatic news of Hussein Kamel's

Amman. While the agency soon wrote

off

Kamel

arrival in

as a potential asset,

the effect of his arrival on the position of the Jordanian government

was

infinitely gratifying.

Saddam camp

at last,

The king swung

and

in

decisively into the anti-

consequence began

mend

to

fences

with some important neighbors. It

had taken years

Hussein s dictated

soft line

for the Saudis to get over their

by the fervent support

monarch's subjects. The frustration to the

pique

at

King

toward Saddam during the Gulf War, a position for Iraq

among

the majority of the

Saudi attitude had been a source of great

CIA, who wanted to be able

to use

Amman

as a

"BRING ME THE HEAD DF SADDAM HUSSEIN"

219

base in plotting against Saddam, and Riyadh as a source of funds for the operation

—the

traditional Saudi role in

intelligence relation-

its

ship with the United States. As one former senior recalled,

"For years

we were

in dealing with Jordan."

significantly affected

Almost

CIA

official

by Saudi slowness

soon as Kamel had arrived in Jor-

as

dan, however. Prince Turki bin Feisel, the Saudi intelligence chief,

made

a "secret" but nonetheless widely noted trip to

Amman to

see

the king, followed by a return trip to Riyadh by the anti-Iraqi Jor-

danian foreign minister, Abdul Karim Kabariti.

At the end of September, in the course of a

King Hussein and to

be given a

his foreign minister

full-court briefing

self,

Washington, to

Langley

on the increasingly elaborate plans an enthusiastic endorse-

for a coup. Part of the briefing included

ment of lyad Alawi s

trip to

were invited out

Iraqi National Accord. President

CUnton him-

according to one of the king's advisers, pressed the royal visitor

Not everyone was

to give his full cooperation.

friend of the king's, a

man who had

and knew the Middle East

well,

so optimistic.

served in the

CIA

An

old

years before

He

counseled caution.

later

explained his instinctive reservations. "I wasn't given any briefings,

but I'm

like

an old farmer

people in charge

[at

who can

smell bad weather coming.

The

the CIA] just weren't very experienced, but

it's

not the same outfit these days. This was not being professionally handled. Too

many people knew about

operation than a covert operation.

my advice.

I

guess

when

arm around you and

it

Still,

—

it

was more of an overt

the Idng didn't really take

the president of the United States puts his

says.

Tour

Majesty,

we need your

help,'

it's

hard to say no." Matters were station chief

now moving

was dispatched

some speed. A new CIA team These Americans were in turn ser-

forward

at

to Jordan along with a special

devoted to the Iraq operation.

viced by a special unit created inside Jordanian intelligence, insulated from their colleagues, in the

pay of the

newly

installed

Iraqis.

many of whom were suspected

head of intelfigence, Sami

sible for assisting their

of being

This special unit reported directly to the

CIA

counterparts

Bartikhi,

and was respon-

—interpreting

for Arabic

speakers, providing transport, facilitating secret meetings with Iraqi military officers,

and other

tasks.

The CIA

officer in day-to-day

OUT DF THE ASHES charge of the operation had previously served as an analyst in the

Though

agency's Directorate of Intelligence.

lacking in any experi-

ence of covert operations, he was much esteemed for the fluency

at

headquarters

and coherence with which he briefed superiors on

the ongoing operation.

Cohen and

In mid-January 1996, David

Steve Richter flew to

Riyadh for a grand conclave of high-level intefligence

by Prince Turld and the Saudi for Iraq,

General

officials.

Hosted

intelligence organizations desk officer

Abu Abdul Mohssan,

those gathered around the

table included the British MI-6, the Jordanians,

and the Kuwaitis. By

had been agreed that all would

the time they adjourned the next day,

it

support the Iraqi National Accord in

its

forthcoming effort to displace

Saddam. The Saudis, of course, had helped give back in the distant days of 1990, only to see

Omar

founders, lyad Alawi and Sahh

Ali,

it

birth to the

Accord

spHt between the two

allegedly because of a dis-

pute over a check from Saudi intelligence. Alawi had moved to Lon-

now

don, and there the Accord had risen again,

embrace of British

intelligence.

Those

at the

in the protective

meeting

financial contributions for the undertaking.

also

agreed on

The Americans were

authorizing $6 million, and the Saudis offered to contribute an equal

sum. The Kuwaitis also made a pledge.

There had not been such aggressive and high-level interaction

among

the

retrospect,

of Hussein

allies it is

on the subject of Iraq since

difficult to

dam's enemies, but after the

at

Gulf War and,

initial

in control.

intelligence agencies of Sad-

panic in Baghdad, the regime

There was, however, another factor

work of which CIA personnel were well aware, and

impending 1996 U.S. presidential

CIA

officials closely

in

understand why. Certainly the defection

Kamel had energized the

appeared to be firmly

tlie

engaged

election.

that

was the

According to former

in the Iraq operation, pressure

from

on high to "move" against Saddam, which had increased from the

moment Deutch

May 1995, became even more intense at the beginning of 1996. One such official stated to us that "It is my understanding that early in 1996 the CIA was given orders took office in

mount a coup in this time frame. Just do it.' The came from the White House. Deutch signed off on it."

that 'You will

orders

If there

was indeed such a

directive

from the White House,

it

was

"BRING ME THE HEAD OF SADDAM HUSSEIN"

221

very closely held. Political operatives dedicated to President Clinton s reelection attested later diat they

knew nothing of such a link between

the election and the

CIA

covert action. "Not even the chief of staff

would have known,"

said

Harold Ickes, deputy chief of

time. "It

would have been between the President, Lake [National

Security adviser],

added

On

staff at the

that

maybe Berger

[Lake's deputy],

and Deutch." Ickes

he thought such a connection was "highly unlikely"

who know Tony

the other hand, those

Lake, the deceptively

mild-mannered and professorial National Security Council

chief,

suggest that, with a pohtical payoff in mind, he would have been

"He was much

quite capable of approving such a bold initiative.

more gung ho on says

this sort

of thing than people might have thought,"

one acquaintance.

Deutch himself denied

that

he received any such commission, a

denial vehemently seconded by Lake. However, that was not the

impression at Langley As one former

came back from words

a meeting at the

to the effect of 'Bring

PoHtics aside,

by

official

White House,

"Deutch

recalled: all

fired up, stating

me the head of Saddam

Hussein.'

early 1996, expectations in Washington,

Amman, and Riyadh were

London,

certainly great that at long last the reign of

the defiant Iraqi leader might be drawing to an abrupt close.

The ques-

tion therefore arises as to the reasons for such optimism. lyad Alawi, as

noted, had a remarkable organizations. In addition, in

Amman. The

—

impressing

he had excellent

officials in intelligence

relations with the

regime

king personally Hked him, as did Abdul Kabariti. In

contrast to his prejudicial

wise"

gift for

comments about Chalabi

—"smart but not

Kabariti exhibited sincere admiration for Alawi, an indulgent

attitude that

was

to survive the

impending catastrophe.

met Alawi many times," Kabariti told us. "He impressed me in way he analyzed internal Iraqi politics. He did not have high

"I

the

hopes for a coup against Saddam." at

the time, he did not share

it

If this

with the

was

CIA

really Alawi's opinion

contingent in

Amman

in the spring of 1996.

The Accord was by no means an impotent his

immediate colleagues

been

in the

organization. Alawi

and

upper ranks of the organization had

influential figures in the Baathist regime. Salah al-Sheikhly,

a weU-known Sunni religious family in Baghdad, was a statistician

from

who

UT OF THE ASHES had

risen to a high position in the Iraqi central

who

ing in the Baathist pantheon as the doctor

wound

after the

Nun had been was married

a

bank before defecting

Tahseen Mu'alla had once enjoyed honored stand-

in the early 1980s.

dressed Saddams

attempted assassination of Qassim. General Adnan

member of the

Iraqi army's elite Special Forces

to the daughter of a close colleague of

Such men had an informed,

if

and

Hussein Kamel.

somewhat dated, understanding of the

workings of Saddams regime.

The second

ingredient that appeared to bolster the prospects of

the Accord was the opportunity, afforded by the change with the king's position, following

Hussein Kamel's defection, to agree to

mount operations out of Amman. Ever since the Gulf War, the formerly sleepy Jordanian

capital

had

taken on some of the atmosphere of Casablanca during World War

Amman

II.

was the window through which Iraq and the outside world

watched each

High up on a

other.

United States signaled

its

hill in

the suburb of Abdoun, the

presence with a

vast,

newly constructed

embassy, heavily fortified but also isolated from the chatter in the

busy

streets below.

On Jebel Amman,

a thoroughfare in the center of

town, the Iraqi embassy constituted a diplomatic outpost second in

importance only to the mission to the United Nations the ambassador carefully selected both for his

The

city

abilities

in

New

and

York,

loyalty.

was crowded with newcomers: Palestinians who had

been expelled by the vengeful Kuwaitis immediately following the war; exiles from Iraq

mosques and public

who

gling trade; journalists

importuning the somewhat

Baghdad. The

for visas to exiles

had sparked

many

itself,

of

them reduced

to sleeping in

parks; businessmen growing rich in the

smug-

periodically flooded the hotels while

sinister

diplomats at the Iraqi embassy

arrival of the Palestinians

a building

boom

in the

and the richer

expanding

city.

Intelli-

gence agents from across the Middle East and beyond congregated there, mingling with the agents of Saddam's

roamed the murdering

city, alert

exiles,

Mukhabarat who

for threats to their master

also

and occasionally

such as the nuclear physicist Muayad Hassan Naji,

gunned down in the street way to Libya.

in front of his wife

and children

in

1992

while on his

Of particular interest

to the

Accord and their American sponsors

"BRING ME THE HEAD OF SADDAM HUSSEIN" were

officers of the Iraqi

settled in

ZZ3

army who made tneir way out of Iraq and these were of exalted rank. In March

Amman. Sometimes

1996, for example, there arrived General Nizar al-Khazraji, former

army and the man whose capture by rebels (though wounded, he had survived) had been the first indication of the seriousness of the southern uprising in 1991. The general, whom chief of staff of the Iraqi

Saddam had tried to rescue from the rebels, now declared that "Saddam s policies have led to the fragmentation and breakdown of the unity of our land, our people, and our army." He announced his intention of working with the Accord and with "the devoted brothers in the military in Iraq."

However,

al-Khazraji's defection

was not greeted with quite the

Saddams enemies

he may have expected.

applause from

that

He

was quickly interviewed by members of the CIA group riding herd

on Alawi. They strongly urged him Accord staff. "I

his

own

leader's orders.

don't

know

"Why

this

to place himself

under the

should I?" replied the former chief of

man." In consequence, he was soon

devices, alone in a small house in

left to

Amman without even the

necessary privilege of bodyguards.

CIA team felt they could afford to dispense with al-Khazraji, who would have been greatly prized a

Presumably, the characters like

few years

earfier,

because they were convinced that the Accord had

already furnished

them with

links to a potent conspiracy against

Saddam.

The

first

fink in the chain

was

in

Amman,

in the

form of a retired

general from the Iraqi Special Forces helicopter force

Mohammed

named

Abdullah al-Shawani. Al-Shawani, a native of the

northern Iraqi city of Mosul, was living in the Jordanian capital but

had not publicly broken connections with the regime In the

fall

of 1994, just before the

into northern Iraq, al-Shawani

He had

a startling proposal:

and Atheer, were resolved leader.

were

to

The young men were

officers,

came

He and work still

first

in

Baghdad.

insertion of a

CIA team

into contact with lyad Alawi. his three sons,

to organize a

Anmar, Ayead,

coup against the

living in Iraq and, furthermore,

not merely in the army, but in the vaunted Republican

Guard itself, where only recruits of impeccable political reliability were accepted. Anmar was a major, Ayead a captain, and Atheer a

DUT OF THE ASHES

224 lieutenant.

Known

as

among

staunch Baathists, they could circulate

their brother officers without attracting the

immediate attention of

the security services.

Alawi hastened to pass on

MI-6,

who

in turn

shared

it

that ignited such enthusiasm

London

station, Langley,

news

this electrifying

with the CIA.

among

It

was

to his friends in

development

this

the coup enthusiasts in the

and the White House. By the end of the

following year, the news from the al-Shawani brothers of the contacts

they had forged in the Iraqi military and security system was

sufficiently

encouraging for the operation to go into high gear with

the dispatch of the special in

Amman,

CIA

their

undercover

miles away, across the desert.

Anyone wishing it

Amman

noted above. Once

however, the sponsors of the impending coup

communicate with

send

unit to

in the care

It

to send a

was

allies in

Baghdad,

to prove a fatal

message

had

still

six

to

hundred

impediment.

had

to the Iraqi capital

to

of one of the professional drivers sanctioned by

the Iraqi Mukhabarat to

make the

Baghdad,

the war, had been difficult at the best of

at least since

times. Since late in 1995

phone exchange

regular run.

had to go

international calls

all

at al-Rashedia,

Phone contact with via the tele-

north of Baghdad, instead of being

dialed directly. Operators taped

all calls,

and the recordings were

subsequently examined by a special committee of representatives

from the various intelligence agencies. For secret communications, the drivers were a vital and vulnerable

on

link.

Everything depended

their evading the pervasive scrutiny of Saddam's intelligence.

But

the Mukhabarat was well aware of the significance of the drivers,

and devoted special care

to

watching their every move.

The CIA, once the team dedicated to had arrived in force in Amman, made it a this professionally offensive

assisting the

priority to

coup

effort

move beyond

system of hand-carried messages. The

Accord was therefore furnished with a

state-of-the-art satellite

com-

munication system, complete with high-technology encryption features to frustrate eavesdroppers.

For further

security, the

Ameri-

cans gave instruction on a system of code words and phrases to be

used

in conversation.

In the light of these painstaking security precautions,

more

astonishing that lyad Alawi, in

Amman

it

was

all

the

to direct a secret con-

"BRING ME THE HEAD DF SADDAM HUSSEIN"

225

spiracy against the leader of one of the most efficiently repressive police states in the world, almost immediately began to broadcast both his

presence and his intentions.

On February 18,

1996, he held a press

conference to announce the imminent opening of a headquarters in

Amman.

This event was, declared Alawi, a "historic

Iraqi opposition

movement

which Saddam

will find

spleen at Uday,

... a

beacon of light into

no hiding

moment

in the

Iraq, a light

from

place." After venting particular

who "profits from the black market, uses his gun freely

on those who cannot defend themselves, physically abuses our

women," Alawi did concede activities that

were areas of his

that there

ensure that lives are not unnecessarily put forces

had previously

attendants in

Amman,

failed to note the

after, hailing

presence of Alawi and his

Further announcements followed

the forthcoming launch of an Accord radio station in

Jordan, al-Mustaqbal atory viewing in

at risk." If Saddams security

they could hardly have remained in ignorance

after this promotional exercise.

soon

organization's

"must remain secret if we are to succeed in our work and

all

—"The Future." Alawi appeared on CNN Iraqi

government

regard Jordan as the door to Iraq, and

offices),

it is

(oblig-

declaring that

"We

important for us to talk to

people inside." In the same news item, the Jordanian information minister stated for

the record that

overthrow the regime.

"We will

not be involved in any plans to

We think this should happen [sic] by the Iraqis

peacefully."

A

review by the State Department's Northern

classified internal

Gulf Affairs Bureau

in

mid-March concluded

that

U.S. policy

toward Iraq was an "unqualified success."

On March

26, an array of Jordanian notables, together with the

leading fights of the Accord, gathered to celebrate the inauguration

of the skirts

new headquarters in a heavily guarded compound on the outof Amman. The festivities were, however, marred by the

appearance that morning in the London Independent of a front-

page

article

by one of the present authors, Patrick Cockbum,

describing the contents of the tape recorded by

Abu Amneh two

months before. Publication of the mercenary bomber's unedifying account of the Accord's terrorist campaign in Baghdad and the revelations of

American sponsorship (not

the Accord in the slaughter at the

to

mention the alleged role of

INC

headquarters in Salahudin),

OUT DF THE ASHES

226 came

as

an embarrassing thunderbolt. Only two weeks before, Pres-

ident Clinton had hosted an "antiterror" conference at an Egyptian seaside resort to

denounce

terrorist

group Hamas.

cal Palestinian

Now

bombings the

in Israel

CIA was

by the

radi-

revealed as having

indirectly sponsored similar tactics. (Following publication of the tape, Nuri hurried out of northern Iraq, eventually finding his to

Amman, where he

quarreled with everyone before

ing to sulk in Turkey.) But this

pened.

way

depart-

unwelcome news was quickly

more catastrophic information. Sometime in January or February 1996, the

lowed by

finally

fol-

far

A

driver carrying messages from

Baghdad was intercepted and

inevitable

Amman

to the

had hap-

coup

plot-

That would have been serious enough, but the man was carrying the vaunted highters in

technology

satellite

arrested.

communication system donated by the CIA. At

a stroke, the entire elaborately crafted plot

CIA, discussed

—

fiercely

argued

at the

at high-level intelligence conferences, discussed in

the Oval Office, and possibly even factored into the campaign for the presidency of the United States

With predictable

craft

—was brought

to ruin.

and cunning, Saddams intelhgence

offi-

chose not to give the slightest hint of their breakthrough.

cials

The al-Shawani brothfollowed instructions earlier communi-

Instead, they waited, watched, ers, all

unaware,

cated by their that they It

were

faithfully

CIA still

advisers

and

listened.

on evading surveillance and believed

above suspicion.

may well have been

that the plot

would have been blown even

without the interception of the driver and his precious cargo. Several

former

CIA officials conveyed

dled with Iraqi cial.

Years

— double agents

later, reflecting

he had helped to

foster,

Accords networks "were

The reason

I

the view that the Accord was rid-

"at least half"

on the

disaster that

according to one

offi-

overcame the scheme

Prime Minister Kabariti concluded that the all

penetrated by the Iraqi security service.

think they were manipulated by Iraqi intelligence

is

that nothing succeeded, nothing worked."

But

if

the Accords secrets were laid bare to

services, there

was

also a leak

Saddam s

security

from the inner recesses of the

Mukhabarat. Late in March 1996, just as Alawi was getting ready for the grand

"BRING ME THE HEAD OF SADDAM HUSSEIN"

227

new headquarters in Amman, a member of Iraqi security with whom Ahmad Chalabi s INC had previously been in contact relayed an urgent dispatch to Salahudin. The Iraqis, he reported, had

opening of his

names of every

the

by the Accord. Further-

single officer recruited

now

more, the captured high-tech communications system was installed in

dad.

The

and operated from an intelligence headquarters

Iraqi intelligence officers,

he reported, were

notion that they were communicating directly with in Langley. (In reality, the link

Bagh-

in

thrilled at the

CIA headquarters

was only with Amman.)

This was electrifying news, and at the end of March, Chalabi flew to Washington.

Ushered

into the office of the director,

he found

himself facing John Deutch and Steve Richter, head of the Near East Division. The two

men

silence as the

sat in

INC

leader

methodically presented the detailed evidence that their cherished

scheme was being brought to nought. It was an acid test of their experience and professionalism. Would they accept that they had been bested by the enemy, and

The answer was young

officers

swift in

who had

retire gracefully

unwelcome

field?

coming. Consulted on the subject, the

enthusiastically

pushed forward when older

hands had counseled caution were unanimous the

from the

bulletin. Clearly, this

in their rejection of

was an exercise

in spite

Chalabi and his people, directed against their more successful for

CIA

funds and support.

for the Iraqis to have

It

by

rivals

was simply impossible, they argued,

circumvented

their precautions against

all

penetration quite so successfully. If their plans had indeed been

compromised, argued the former intelligence analyst imported

to

more reason to speed things up. Deutch and Richter agreed. The operation would go on. D day for the coup was set for the third week in June. So confisupervise the coup scheme, that was

all

the

dent was Alawi in his prospects that he granted yet another inter-

Washington

view, this time to the

intervention from his

CIA

Post,

and without any apparent

case officers, in which he publicized the

forthcoming "secret" operation. With a lack of discretion that astonished the journalist, Alawi declared that the "uprising should have at its

very center the [Iraqi] armed forces.

war.

On

uprising

the contrary, [i.e.,

we preach

a coup], supported

.

.

.

We

don't preach

civil

controlled, coordinated mifitary

by the people,

that

would not allow

DUT OF THE ASHES itself to

go into acts of revenge or chaos." In other words, the Sunnis

who had

rallied to

Saddam

Kurds need not worry that

would be no

1991 out of fear of the Shia and the

in

this

would be another

intifada; there

"acts of revenge" against the regime's erstwhile sup-

porters in the Baath Party.

The

interview was picked up and dissem-

inated around the Middle East and the world by numerous wire ser-

with most of the stories emphasizing the connections

vices,

Alawi, the CIA, and the plans for an If the interview

prompted Saddam June 26,

arrests

was timed to lack off the coup, to

end

were

his

scale

and scope was a

it

may

begun

on June

tribute both to the success of the

apparatus and to the even greater success of

— 120

in the first

—

sweep

to

20. Their

coup

plotters

and security

Saddams agents

monitoring the plot every step of the way. arrested officers

have

Accord came

Later, the

earUer, possibly

in spreading their net so widely across the Iraqi military

The

also

cat-and-mouse game. By Wednesday,

in full swing.

believe that the arrests had

among

imminent coup.

in

from the

^were

superelite Special Republican Guards, the General Security Service,

the Republican Guard, and the regular army.

from Baghdad past

as well as

key

had been staunchly

Some

cities in tlie

loyal:

Mosul,

They were

all

Sunnis,

Sunni heartland that

Tikrit, Faluja,

in the

and Ramadi.

of the officers arrested were from a highly secret special com-

munications unit called B32, attached to Saddam himself and responsible for his secure

communications with military units around the

country. So sensitive

and important was the work of this unit

those of unimpeachable loyalty had been accepted into

its

that only

ranks.

But

even the B32 s commander himself, Brigadier General Ata Samaw'al,

was among those This was the

arrested, tortured,

moment

and executed.

for Qusay, the quiet

had appeared so shy and deferential

to

Uday

younger brother who years before in the

al-

Rashid Hotel restaurant, to show his mettle. Saddam appointed him to

head a

special

committee consisting of the heads of the

Mukhabarat, General Security, and Military Intelligence. The committee was given unlimited powers to arrest any person, regardless

who was implicated in the coup attempt. Among those who passed into the hands of the committee,

of official status,

ensconced

in the headquarters of the

Mukhabarat

in the

up-market

"BRING ME THE HEAD OF SADDAM HUSSEIN"

229

Mansour district of Baghdad, were officers oFvery senior official status indeed. Apart from General Samaw'al, there was Colonel Omar alDhouri, a section director for the

Amn

al-Khass (the special security

most powerful of the intelligence

service), the

services,

and Colonel

Riyadh al-Dhouri, from the Mukhabarat, both members of a tribe that in spite of disturbances the previous year

A

die regime.

general from the

Tikriti

was picked up,

Nasiri,

was

Amn

still

considered loyal to

al-Khass,

Muwaffaq

another from the Mukhabarat. Out-

as well as

—^where those implicated included several

side the military officers

and two army generals

Dalaim

clan,

where

air force

—Qusay's scythe swept through the

members of

several

al-

the leading families were

arrested while others fled for their lives to Jordan.

Some ily

of the victims had been even closer to

than the

officers.

Saddam and his fam-

The family's domestic staff was drawn from the community of Iraq. They were now arrested

small Assyrian Christian

and interrogated. Two cooks, Butrous Eliya Tome and Wilfiam

were

have confessed to being involved

later reported to

poison Saddam. Three months

later,

the

Matti,

in a plot to

number of those swept up

in

the purge had reportedly grown to eight hundred.

Needless to

Mohammed

the three sons of

say,

Shawani, the young Republican Guard officers heart of the plot, were

among

the

first

Abdullah

who had been

al-

at the

be picked up. But they

to

were not immediately executed. Qusay and

his

minions had other

plans for them. Sitting

expectantly

informed of the direct resist

Amman,

the

use one

last

26, the special

arrested

all

their

hopes in the most

opponents in Baghdad could not full

extent of the Iraqi

tri-

communications device purred into

time, carrying a message from

"We have

CIA team was

special

and utter collapse of all

fashion. Their

the temptation of displaying the

umph. On June CIA.

total

and brutal

in

your people,"

tlie it

Mukhabarat

to the

reportedly said. "You

as well pack up and go home." The CIA did just that. Within twenty-four hours,

might

all

the

members

Amman.

of the group that had been working on the coup had

left

"They ran away," an embittered

"Maybe

were

scared,

I

don't

know

Iraqi exile said later.

why."

Some members

tliey

of the Accord

remained behind, issuing doleful press statements that chronicled the

OUT OF THE ASHES rout:

"We have

learned that several

members of the

special

group

[as

the Accord termed the coup plotters] have died during interrogation.

We mourn their deaths and promise them that their deaths will not be in vain."

When they sped out of Jordan, the CIA took with them General Mohammed Abdullah al-Shawani and lodged him in a safe house in London, the location of which was kept a closely guarded secret. A few weeks

later,

the safe-house

Anmar had you are not Atheer

in

will all

The

old

Baghdad be

in a

week. Father," he

said, "I

and Ayead and

killed."

man broke down

in tears.

cried. "I

did not go to Baghdad.

would be honored.

gain

Abdullah's eldest son,

a message for his father from his Iraqi captors. "If

done?" he reportedly

He

was Anmar, the

rang. It

from Baghdad.

calling

I

phone

Mohammed

Repubhcan Guard major and

"What have

have killed

No one

I

done, what have

my sons."

imagined that the implied bar-

Instead, shaken

by the contemptuous ease

with which the Iraqis had once again penetrated their security, his pro-

moved the heartbroken fatlier across the Atlantic. The attempted Iraqi coup of 1996 marked one of the most colossal

tectors hurriedly

failures in the history of the

CIA, deserving a place on the roster of

such fiascos with the far more famous Cuban Bay of Pigs operation in 1961. So complete was the disaster that those concerned could only

hope

to evade

condemnation by pretending nothing much out of the

ordinary had occurred. "In the Central Intelligence Agency, like every-

where

else in the world, they always

"They

aren't always successful.

have

risk," said

John Deutch

These were responsible

later.

risks carried

out by dedicated individuals coordinated with an overall government policy."

plot

Asked whether he had understood beforehand

had been penetrated

(as

that the

coup

Chalabi had warned him three months in

advance), Deutch refused to comment.

To reinforce the notion apologize, the

CIA

that there

was nothing

for

which

it

had

to

kept Alawi on the payroll, budgeting almost $5

million to support his activities in the following year alone.

In the meantime, Saddam,

was turning

his eyes north.

emboldened by

his crushing victory,

There were fresh defeats and humilia-

tions in store for his enemies.

TEN

Saddam Moves North

After

long years of confrontation with

government had gradually

Saddam Hussein,

the U.S.

fallen into the habit of taking

its

most

tangible asset for granted. Northern Iraq, the land of the Kurds,

been freed from

government control

Iraqi

in

had

1991 only under pres-

sure from Western public opinion, outraged by the spectacle of a million Kurdish refugees to

on the borders of Turkey and

George Bush's reluctant dispatch of

Iran.

allied troops into

Thanks

northern

Iraq and the consequent withdrawal of the Iraqi military, the United

—the Kurdish groups—and a base from

States

had acquired aUies

which

to collect intelHgence

that

Saddam

rest of Iraq. In addition, the fact

own country was a who first sat down at

did not control a large portion of his

valuable propaganda point.

the

on the

end of May 1991

to

The CIA

officials

ponder the future course of operations

Saddam had concluded that the existence of the northern safe haven gave them a public relations tool with which to "take a whack at his prestige," as one of them put it, "by accentuating his against

loss of sovereignty

By

over the north."

1996, the U.S. presence in Kurdistan had taken on the appear-

ance of permanence. U.S. parallel, a visible sign

aircraft

patroUed the skies above the 36th

of U.S. protection as they enforced the north-

OUT OF THE ASHES

em "no-fly zone"

for Iraqi aircraft. In Zakho, U.S.

and

allied officers

staffed the Military Coordination Center, a relic of the 1991 negotiations that

had led to the

from Kurdistan and

Iraqi withdrawal

still

pro-

vided a symbolic affirmation of Western military support. The State

Department's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance disbursed millions of dollars'

worth of food and medicine annually. In Salahudin,

the

CIA teams continued to come and go, though since the debacle of

the

March 1995

offensive their role

was

strictly limited to collecting

intelligence.

The two main Kurdish factions, Massoud Barzani's KDP and Jalal Talabani's PUK, had turned their guns on each other in 1994. The U.S. State Department had sponsored a cease-fire at meetings in Ireland in August But

this stability

was entirely

superficial.

and September 1995, but had lacked the

on the underlying causes of the

for a settlement still

interest or energy to

push

fighting. Barzani

refused to share the enormous revenues flowing into his coffers

from the border crossing

at

Khabur, while Talabani decUned to

share power in Arbil, the administrative capital and also the largest city in Kurdistan, containing a fifth of the total population.

While Washington was playing

and

less

less

of an active role in

Kurdistan, others were taking an increasingly disruptive interest.

For Turkey and

Iran, northern Iraq

cern. Since 1992,

was an area of deepening con-

Turkey had been routinely sending military expe-

ditions across the border in pursuit of Turkish

PKK. The

Iranians

had no love

Kurd

government

for the

guerrillas of the in

Baghdad, but

neither did they want to see Iraqi rule permanently displaced by that of

Turkey and the United

States.

close off Iraqi Kurdistan as a safe

while, in Baghdad,

Furthermore, they wanted to

haven for their own Kurds. Mean-

Saddam watched

the political currents in and

around the northern provinces, waiting for the opportunity reassert his

power

to

in his lost territories.

Underneath the umbrella of the two main

parties in Kurdistan,

there remained a multitude of smaller but significant power centers,

especiaUy tribes and clans such as the Harki, Zibari, and Sourchi, still

who

preserved a semifeudal social order amid the valleys and canyons

of the fierce mountain landscape. The Sourchi, led by a rich and pow-

SADDAM MOVES NORTH erful family of that

and a

tribal

name that exercised authority over a dozen villages

army of

several thousand

enterprises as far afield as

men, not

High on a hilltop, the Sourchi home vital strategic position, for

by a

built

to

mention business

London and Casablanca, were among the

most powerful of these semi-independent

highway

233

entities.

village of Kalaqin

occupied a

overlooked the Hamilton Road, the

it

New Zealand engineer of that name

in the

1920s

to give the British access to the Kurdish heartlands. In a land almost

without roads, to

it is

the road.

It

runs from Arbil, the Kurdish capital,

Haj Omran, on the Iranian border, connecting the plains with the

high mountains.

Whoever controls

the narrow, winding highway can

cut Kurdistan in two, and warring armies have paid dearly to take or

hold

it.

Even

years, the

in a country almost continually at

war

for thirty-five

Hamilton Road has the reputation of being bathed

in

Below Kalaqin, the road runs through the deep gorge of the Gali Ali Beg under towering black cliffs, where a single machine gunner can stop an army. As recently as the 1950s, the Sourchi were in the habit of periodically closing the gorge with the aid of a few blood.

bursts from the ancient Vickers fort,

machine gun on top of

releasing traffic on the Hamilton

had been extracted from

By

Road only

Beg was

after suitable tolls

villas in

moved

out of the fort

the family compound, but the Gali Ali

as vital a strategic prize as ever, especially to

Barzani and the

KDR

It

was the main supply route

risons holding the front line in the intermittent civil

Talabani's fire

mud

stalled travelers.

1996, the masters of Kalaqin had long

and into luxurious

their

PUK, which held

eastern Kurdistan.

brokered by the Americans in Ireland

was fundamentally unstable. At

all costs,

still

Massoud

for their gar-

war with

The tenuous

Jalal

cease-

held, but the situation

Barzani had to protect his

military lifeline.

The Sourchi had maintained an uneasy clusion of the previous round of fighting

bani in 1995 had

left

them

neutrality since the con-

between Barzani and Tala-

in Barzani's territory.

Now

the

KDP

leader suspected that there was treachery afoot. His intelligence service

had intercepted radio messages between Zayed, the eldest

son of Hussein Agha al-Sourchi, the sixty-five-year-old head of the

OUT OF THE ASHES

23^*

tribe,

and

PUK

KDP

The

units to the east.

later

claimed that the

messages contained mihtary information, including

movements of Barzani, Hoshyar

that might

be of use

details of the

to potential assassins.

Zibari, Barzani's veteran lieutenant, says that

what hap-

pened next should not have surprised the Sourchi. He insists that the KDP demanded that "they either tell Zayed to go away, or at least hand over his radio." The Sourchi refused. They cannot have

demand too seriously, since they made no preparations to resist attack. They did not rally their sizable tribal militia, and Hussein Agha s large villa in the family compound was not fortified. The KDP did not have to move many men into the area. Because of its

taken the

strategic importance,

it

already had detachments of Peshmerga

nearby, notably at the old Iraqi

on the other

valley

The

Kalaqin.

KDP

army

fortress of Spilik, across the

Hamilton Road, to the east of

side of the

achieved complete surprise with

its

early

morn-

ing attack.

"My father was

come to lunch, not to attack "He was sleeping in his house protected by just three or four bodyguards when they attacked." At 5:00 A.M., the KDP Peshmerga opened fire with Kalashnikov expecting Massoud to

him," says Zayed's brother Jahwar.

automatic Agha's

him

rifles

villa.

and rocket-propelled grenade launchers on Hussein

His bodyguards fired back. The attackers shouted

he refused and fought on. By

to surrender, but

account, the old

man

house, presumably to shoot better.

When ing.

Wounded by

the

KDP

KDP

"He was

hit

flat

by

roof of his

a rocket," says

the fragments, he was carried downstairs.

stormed the house, they shot him

Three of his bodyguards were

The

his family's

held out for over four hours against over-

whelming odds. At the end, he climbed onto the Jahwar.

at

insist that

as

he

lay bleed-

also killed.

they did not attack Kalaqin in order to

kill

Hussein Agha, but to arrest Zayed. They say the death of the Sourchi leader was "an unfortunate incident," and an accidental by-

product of the attack. This explanation

which

all

is

belied by the fury with

the houses in the village belonging to the Sourchi family

were destroyed. Within a few

days,

demoUtion gangs had systemati-

cally leveled their villas, carefully taking care to

remove the valuable

reinforcement bars from the concrete. Ducks wandered through the

SADDAM MOVES NORTH

235

wreckage of the sumptuous Sourchi homes, pitted with bullet holes, looking for food.

A

$3 million Sourchi-owned chicken farm near

Kalaqin was dismantled and sold to Iran

—"For peanuts!" laments

Jahwar. Zayed himself, allegedly the object of the exercise, had

escaped during

tlie battle,

and with other members of the family

swore an eternal blood feud against Barzani.

Even

in Kurdistan,

many people found

ble Sourchi chief rather shocking.

It

the killing of the venera-

showed

just

Barzani was prepared to go in defending himself.

about Massoud

as a quiet

how far Massoud "Many people talk

and gentle person; but there

when it comes to his survival," "He knew the PUK was determined to Barzani

says

is

no gentle

one Kurdish observer.

finish

him

off."

The speed

with which Barzani reacted to what he saw as impending treachery

by the Sourchi was a sign that he believed

He was

northern Iraq. left to fight

Jalal

Kurdish since he

on

their

right,

but

this

civil

war was returning

to

time the Kurds would not be

own.

Talabani has always had the reputation of a gambler in pofitics,

being more mercurial than Massoud Barzani. Ever

founded the

Patriotic

Union of Kurdistan

in the

wake of

the great Kurdish defeat of 1975, Talabani has switched alliances

with bewildering speed, even by local standards. In 1991, he was the

—

to kiss Saddam on the cheek a gesture greeted with astonishment by other Kurds, not to mention his numerous friends in the West but later he denounced negotiations with Baghdad. first

—

In the uneasy calm that followed the Sourchi

was making

final

He

preparations for yet another dangerous gamble.

was planning to change the balance of power it

Talabani

killing,

in Kurdistan

and

to

do

with the aid of a major outside power: Iran. Iranian support was essential for Talabani. Like other Kurdish

leaders,

he was not short of weapons such

as

Kalashnikovs or

launchers for rocket-propelled grenades (RPG-7s). These were, in

any case, part of the arsenal of any Kurdish household. artillery,

He

also

had

including multiple rocket launchers and 155-millimeter

them he needed ammunition, which he could get The Iranians could also give him a military advantage over Barzani simply by allowing him to use the Iranian road system to ferry troops in safety up and down the long border on the guns, but to use

only from Iran.

OUT DF THE ASHES Iranian side. This enabled

him

KDP wherever he wanted,

outflanking their positions.

to concentrate troops to attack the

In return, Talabani could offer the Iranians his cooperation

Kurds of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran

against the Iranian

(KDPI). Documents captured by Barzanis forces

later in

1996

showed Talabani cooperating with Iranian intelligence. Iranian Kurdish militants were arrested in his territory and were handed over to Iran. Very soon after the Sourchi

Deep

ther.

killing,

Talabani went fur-

within his territory at Khoi Sanjaq, his

own

birthplace,

the Iranian Kurdish guerrillas had a base, fortified with earth walls

and machine-gun

posts. In July,

he agreed to allow Iran to send a

column of two thousand Revolutionary Guards

to capture

it.

In

August, the Iranian Kurds signed an agreement with Talabani to stop

all

military operations against Iran. It

for active Iranian support in the

war

that

was evidently the price

was about

to start.

Barzani could see what was coming and began searching desper-

own. Later, he was to make

ately for outside help of his

much

of his

warnings to Washington of the looming threat from Iran. His aides had, for example, faxed the

who was

official

on the National Security Council

responsible for the Middle East to report that Iran had

KDP

"approached the

leadership on the evening of July 26-27

requesting access for their troops to

come through Haj Omran, but

Mr. Barzani refused to offer such access."

Washington may have imagined that the to

win

its

KDP was

simply trying

support in a Kurdish faction fight by playing up the Iranian

bogeyman and therefore there was no cause

for alarm. This

miscalculation that was to prove fatal to a large

number

was a

of Iraqis in

the very near future. "The chief American mistake," as

Kamran

Karadaghi, the highly astute Kurdish commentator, later observed,

"was that they thought the Kurds had nowhere else to go."

On August Kalaqin, the

17,

two months almost to the day

PUK launched its

attack. It

after the incident at

was cleverly timed

cide with the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the

1946,

when

ebrations. party's

to coin-

KDP

in

the party leaders would be attending golden jubilee cel-

KDP

offices

and checkpoints were decorated with the

yellow flag and pictures of Mullah Mustafa, Massoud s father

and the hero of the

fight for

Kurdish self-determination.

SADDAM MOVES NORTH The

first

mountains.

days' fighting

were

which they were

Kurdish

typical of warfare in the

The number of troops

vast areas over

237

involved was not large, given the

fighting.

The

PUK probably had,

most, seven to eight thousand trained Peshmerga and another

thousand hold

militia.

was a war of

The

KDP had similar numbers.

swift advances

and

retreats.

heavy casualties to their hard-core

The

em

Each

side tried to

towns, strong points^ and the few surfaced roads.

villages,

early battles

all

Both sides

It

tried to avoid

units.

went Talabani s way.

end of the Hamilton Road

at

five

swiftly

KDP units at the north-

crumbled because, so

their

commanders claimed, they were being attacked "with the help of Iranian artillery and rocket

fire."

Some

KDP units changed sides.

the broken terrain, nobody on Barzani's side of the front really if

the shell

fire

was coming from Talabani s forces or Iranian

forces firing across the border. Nevertheless, the

mand was

insistent that their

side help.

Hoshyar

knew

artillery

high com-

only with out-

Zibari, Barzani's principal interlocutor with the

outside world, said at the time that

the attack because

KDP

enemy was succeeding

In

it

it

was impossible

to hold

back

was "backed by howitzers and Katyusha rocket

launchers provided by Iran."

Despite the outbreak of full-scale war in northern Iraq, the U.S.

government gave no indication of concern or even awareness of

what was happening. Only two months before, the CIA-backed coup organized from Amman,

and promised

in

for

which so much had been hoped

Washington, had been routed with contemptuous

ease by Saddam. Qusay's torture and execution squads were

still

mopping up the remnants of the conspiracy. President Chnton was what seemed certain to be a triumphant reelection campaign in which the foreign policy of his administration barely featured as an issue. No one in the government wanted to raise the profile of Iraq at that particular moment. The day that the PUK-Iranian onslaught fell on Barzani, he in the midst of

received a letter from Robert Pelletreau, assistant secretary of state for

Near East

for a

Affairs, suggesting that

peace meeting. Four days

plea for intervention: clear

message

"We

to Iran to

later,

he get together with Talabani

Barzani faxed Pelletreau with a

request the United States to

end

its

meddfing

in

.

.

.

send a

northern Iraq." The

OUT OF THE ASHES

23B

request was coupled with an ominous warning: "Our options are limited and since the U.S.

only option In

left is

On

.

.

.

the

Barzani had apparently concluded that American promises

fact,

many

of support, repeated

were

not responding even poUtically

is

the Iraqis."

times by senior U.S.

as worthless as similar

officials since

promises had proved in his

August 22, hardly giving Pelletreau time to take

composed a

respectful request for help to the

1991,

father's time.

action, Barzani

man who had

killed

three of his brothers, selectively murdered eight thousand of his tribe,

and more generally slaughtered

many

as

two hundred thousand

as

Kurds only eight years before. "His Excellency" Saddam Hussein was asked to "interfere to ease the foreign threat" from Iran.

Saddam was only

too happy to oblige.

He was

already enjoying a

very successful summer. In June, he had not only crushed the CIA-

sponsored Accord coup, but his deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz,

had

also deftly avoided a threatened

threat

had emerged

as a result

American bombing

attack.

of attempts by Rolf Ekeus s

That

Unscom

inspectors to gain access to certain "sensitive sites" thought to contain information

on

Iraq's

had been instructed

hidden weapons. The guards

to block the inspectors

had taken the matter

at

the sites

from entering; Unscom

to the Security Council.

The United

States

was

highly confident that the Security Council would cite Iraq as being in "material breach" of the original cease-fire resolution, thus giving

the Americans the authority to launch a miUtary strike in retaliation.

But Ekeus had flown irritation

to

Baghdad, and, on June 22, to the intense

of the U.S. government, which thought he had conceded

too much, had negotiated an agreement that ended the

averted the

Saddam, therefore, may well have ation

was

months

shifting in his favor.

later,

and

When

felt that

the international situ-

Barzani's request arrived

two

the Iraqi leader was ready to take the risk and defy the

Americans by interfering Further

crisis

strike.

letters

in the north.

from the

week of August, warning

KDP

leader to Washington in the

have to turn to Baghdad, were a smoke screen to conceal intentions.

He had

Talabani's

blitzkrieg

last

again in tones of desperation that he might

already

was

made

his

his real

arrangement with Saddam.

threatening

KDP

headquarters

at

SADDAM MOVES NORTH

239

Salahudin on the mountain ridge overlooking the southern end of the Hamilton Road. Unless he received help soon, Barzani faced total defeat.

The

object of the exercise now, therefore, was to keep

the Americans in ignorance of what was happening. Barzani therefore agreed to send emissaries to a

London on August was interested

By

30.

meeting

in the U.S.

this time, neither

American mediation. Pelletreau

in

that

he had telephoned Talabani to arrange a

the

PUK

leader "promised

full

embassy

in

of the Kurdish leaders later explained

cease-fire,

whereupon

cooperation, [but] did nothing."

According to the American diplomats account, the United States to intervene. The State Department refused to come up with the money for a proposed mediation effort and the Pentagon wanted nothing whatsoever to do with northern Iraq. On the ground around Arbil, the Kurdish capital and one of the

was powerless

oldest cities in the world, with a population of 600,000, the change in the poUtical situation

was more evident than

in

London and

Washington. Since Iraqi forces had pulled out of most of Kurdistan in 1991, they

had manned a heavily

twenty miles from the

city.

fortified line

The ground

is flat

some

fifteen to

and, apart from

some

earth ramparts, the Kurds had nothing to stop Iraqi armor.

Any

resident of northern Iraq

would have had good reason

dread the day when Iraqi tanks rolled out of those

moved was

north.

For one group

fortified lines

to

and

in particular, however, the prospect

positively terrifying. Despite the vastly diminished standing of

Ahmad

Chalabi with his old patrons

Congress was

thousand

very

still

much

Kurdish

ties

they could expect

On

the CIA, the Iraqi National

The

several

soldiers, administrators, intelligence officials, translators,

broadcasters, and propagandists local

at

a presence in Kurdistan.

—most of them

—who had remained little

Iraqi Arabs without

faithful to the

cause

knew

mercy if Saddam returned.

the other hand, the

INC had

mum success and popularity in

achieved

1994 when

it

its

moment

had acted

as a

of maxi-

mediat-

ing force between the warring Kurdish groups. In London,

where

the United States was convening the peace talks due to begin on

August 30,

INC

Ahmad

mediation

Chalabi was pressing for support for a renewed

effort. It

may well have

been, given the scale of the

fighting (and Talabani s confidence that

he was winning), that the

OUT OF THE ASHES time for such efforts was

any case, such an effort was

past. But, in

impossible without money. As Chalabi and anyone else famihar with

Kurdistan well knew, a mediation force would have had to be able to grease

its

way with myriad

payoffs to local

commanders on

either

side to assure the safety, let alone the success, of the mediators.

who

Nevertheless, there were officials in the State Department

thought

this

ernment

might be a good investment. Other more powerful govreportedly nixed the idea because of their antipa-

officials

Ahmad

thy to

Chalabi. But, sitting in London, Chalabi remained

hopeful and therefore instructed his

men

in

northern Iraq to hold

themselves in readiness.

One astute

INC

of these

leaders on the ground was the extremely

Ahmad

and experienced

who commanded an

Allawi,

excel-

lent intelligence service with spies in the Iraqi intelligence services

and army. Soon

after Talabanis bid to finish with the

begun on August Iraqi

intelligence

17, Allawi says

—both

civil

he "began

and

preparing a huge attack on the north."

INC

KDP

from

to hear reports

—saying

military

had

they were

He passed the news on to the

headquarters in London.

Over the next week, Allawi found himself mately tragic dilemma.

On

renewed INC mediation knew, the

effort. If

was to play this

it

INC needed to concentrate its

to get tliem into big camps.

They

and

ulti-

role again, Allawi

scattered forces.

totaled

twenty-five tliousand officers and men.

maps of Arbil." Rumors of an Iraqi

in a bizarre

the one hand, tliere was the hope for a

"We began

between twenty-two and

We began to give them train-

ing and

attack

grew

stronger.

On

August 29, Allawi

sent out patrols behind the Iraqi lines to gather information.

They

returned with reports from their informants that the Iraqi army

would begin

to

move

soon.

"On August

thirtieth,

we

started to build

defensive fines around Arbil," says Allawi. "At the same time, reports of a deal

between the

Ghanim Jawad,

we

got

KDP and Baghdad. We told London."

senior official of the

INC, who was

at the

INC

headquarters in London, says that he and his colleagues were

alarmed by what Allawi was teUing them over the

from

Arbil.

satellite

phone

Chalabi contacted the Americans with the news. But

Barzani s delegates to the

London

talks

were under

instructions to

SADDAM MOVES NORTH of what was afoot. At

allay suspicions

embassy meeting on

tITe

KDP

August 30, an American diplomat asked one of the

what was happening between

his party

and

pening," the delegate rephed. "Everything

The CIA team

in Salahudin at least

tion to the reports of Allawi and others. basis of information

from the

nent, agency officers

Turkish border. front lines

INC

is

Iraq.

delegates

"Nothing

hap-

is

normal."

was belatedly paying atten-

On August 27,

acting

on the

was immi-

that an Iraqi offensive

climbed into their vehicles and raced for the

They had no

intention of being anywhere near the

when Saddam made

his

move. Their

the Iraqi

allies in

National Congress, fostered and funded by the agency from inception,

The heavy

were

left to

Iraqi attack

artillery fire

began

at 4:51 a.m.

from the

on Saturday, August 31, with and south of

east, west,

defenders saw some Iraqi helicopters. Half an hour

began tia,

its

fend for themselves.

to roll forward against sporadic resistance

The

Arbil.

later, Iraqi

tanks

INC

from the

mili-

mostly former soldiers in the Iraqi army, and some three thou-

sand Peshmerga of the PUK. Directly in the path of the advancing Iraqi

camp

at

army was an INC

Qushtapa, just to the east of Arbil and about three miles

from the

Iraqi front line. It

features.

The

site

A

the main road.

was not defended by any

had been chosen simply because

large unit of

INC

or natural

hills it

was close

to

had been gathered here

soldiers

in a large, disused garage, awaiting orders

from London

to

com-

mence mediation efforts. Qushtapa was infamous in Kurdistan as Saddam Hussein had sent the women and children of the Barzani tribe, after he had massacred eight thousand male members

the place

of the tribe in 1983.

"The

Iraqi

Now it was to be the

army came

scene of another tragedy.

straight across the fields," says

Jawad. "They surrounded the camp by eight or nine collected the tions

INC

as prisoners,

and put them

forecourt of the ies

of dead

Ghanim morning,

in a big hall."

began immediately. An old woman who came

in the afternoon of August 31 to look for

in the

to

Execu-

Qushtapa

later

her son was allowed into the

camp by Iraqi soldiers. She said they had put the bod-

INC men into two open pits,

in

one of which she counted

twenty-eight corpses. She said she could see fresh blood, showing that the killings

had only

just stopped. In

all,

ninety-six

men were

OUT DF THE ASHES

242 killed.

Only

six

or seven escaped by putting on Kurdish Peshmerga

uniforms, speaking Kurdish, and pretending to belong to the

Ahmad

men

Allawi says so few of his

KDP.

got away because they were

"caught in a sandwich and just couldn't escape."

As the

Iraqi

were moving

army was massacring the INC

into Arbil. Kosorat Rasul, the

could not defend

at

Qushtapa,

tanks

its

PUK commander

in the

armed troops against between thirty and forty thousand Iraqi soldiers. He had been extremely nervous about Iraqi troop movements since the previous city,

day, repeatedly his

it

with only three thousand

phoning

Ahmad Allawi and Jalal

lightly

Talabani,

who was

in

headquarters just outside Sulaimaniya, for information. Talabani meanwhile was making frantic

him

tary of State Pelletreau to tell to plead for

calls to Assistant

that the Iraqis

Secre-

were coming and

American intervention. Pelletreau responded with an

assurance that there would be "serious consequences"

if

Saddam

was indeed advancing into the north. The experienced diplomat was careful not to

make any

direct promises of

But Talabani chose

vention.

to

American

interpret

military inter-

Pelletreau's judicious

phrasing as meaning that U.S. help was on the way, or

veyed that message

to his troops.

On the

bombs to fall on the attackers. The Iraqi advance into the city was slow and also

U.S. Air Force

first

methodical.

Saddam

probably monitoring American reaction. The defenders were

cheered when they heard American the morning.

overhead

aircraft

More appeared twenty minutes

later,

at

10:40 A.M. in

but the planes

flew away and did not return. Allawi said the fight was hopeless:

had only AK-47s and RPG-7s of the morning, local

city."

that Iraqi tanks

ers then issued their

During much

PUK leaders, who had ruled Arbil for two years,

were locked in prolonged discussions about what to do.

them

"We

and Republican Guards.

against tanks

At two o'clock, the Iraqi tanks began to enter the

told

con-

front lines in front of Arbil,

the defending troops waited expectantly for the

was

at least

first

were

in the center of town.

decisive order of the day,

Finally, Allawi

The

PUK lead-

which was that

"everybody should escape as best they can."

By seven

in the evening, the Iraqi flag

been the Kurdish parliament, quickly

showed

that they

was

flying

over what had

in the center of Arbil. Iraqi security

had a

chilfingly accurate

knowledge of die

SADDAM MOVES NORTH whereabouts of their enemies

in the city.

Western diplomats and the

Kurdish parties later decried the effectiveness of the

group a

intelligence paid the opposition

urgency with which they sought

officers

fatal

INC, but

compliment

Iraqi

in the

and members of the group.

Nineteen of them were arrested by Iraqi security and taken to Baghdad, never to be seen again. Asked later if he

knew what had happened

CIA contingent had left behind as they fled to

to the people the

safety,

Robert Pelletreau repHed with chilling blandness: 'Tou're asking

whether some of them were people were

But the

killed.

killed? It

INC s

is

very possible that a

lot

of INC

an independent organization."

campaign bus in Troy, Tennessee, on the day Chnton expressed "grave concern" about the Arbil fell, President situation but said it would be "highly premature to speculate on any Speaking from

response

his

we might

have."

Defense Secretary William Perry gave a hint that Saddam had little

from an American response when he said that U.S.

to fear

interests

were concentrated

ter" of Iraq, adding, in the civil

war

in the south

"My judgment is

in the north."

and

that we

vital

in the "strategic cen-

should not be involved

Half a decade of American involve-

ment in Iraqi Kurdistan was instantly forgotten. American

when

retaliation,

it

did

come on

the second and third

of September, provided a convincing demonstration of the limits of

American power

in the region.

Gulf War coalition

allies

For the

first

time, formerly staunch

Saudi Arabia and Turkey

flatly

refused to

allow U.S. warplanes to attack Iraq from their territory. Clinton therefore unleashed

unmanned

cruise missiles from ships in the

Persian Gulf, but the forty-four such missiles fired over two days

were aimed

at Iraqi

command

posts and air defense centers near

and

Nassariyali, far to the south of the fighting. Iraqis, Kurds,

immediate neighbors,

if

scious that these targets

got the bitterly.

map

not the rest of the world, were very con-

were four hundred miles from

of Iraq the wrong

em

way

no-fly zone,

Arbil.

"They

INC

official

up," remarked one

(Among other excuses advanced by

for steering clear of the north Iran, Talabani's backer.)

their

administration officials

was the fear of being seen

The United

which had proved wholly ineffective

an

as

States also extended

its

ally

of

south-

in protecting

the Iraqi Shia, seventy miles farther to the north, from the

32nd par-

OUT OF THE ASHES allel to

the 33rd parallel.

UN

south," declared

"We have choked Saddam Hussein

ambassador Madeleine Albright

put a gloss on the debacle.

was

It

left to

cial affirmations

Intelligence in the

"We

in

in the

an effort to

whacked him." CIA director John Deutch to pour cold water on really

offi-

of success. Saddam, he bluntly informed the Senate

Committee on September

19, "is politically stronger

Middle East than he was before sending

now

his troops into north-

em Iraq in recent weeks." Older and wiser perhaps after the failure of who may have known that Clinmake him secretary of defense, also stated that tliere was little prospect of Saddam being removed in the near term. This was in sharp contrast to the CIAs assessment to the same committee only four months before that "Saddam s prospects for surviving the attempted coup in June, Deutch,

ton was not going to

another year are declining." Six years before,

Saddam had

foolishly stayed put in

Kuwait while

the Americans gathered up the will and the forces to punish him. did not forces nally,

commit the same mistake

from Arbil almost

the

ner of the

as

again,

soon as the

city

withdrawing

He

his military

had been secured. Nomi-

KDP was in control, its yellow flag replacing the green banPUK on buildings diroughout the city. But even as the tanks

pulled back, Iraqi security remained behind.

The KDP, having made its Faustian bargain with Saddam Hussein, was eager to show that it could not be pushed too far. When the Iraqi Mukhabarat arrested some members of a small Kurdish Islamic group with

whom the KDP enjoyed friendly relations,

ened to take some

Iraqi intelligence

Barzani s men threatmen in Arbil and kill them unless

own amazement, the eight who had in the interim been hung upside down and

the prisoners were returned. To their Islamic prisoners,

beaten with cables selves driven

at intelligence

headquarters in Mosul, found them-

back to Arbil and released. The

the Kurds and the Americans that

its

KDP wanted to prove to

deal with

Saddam was

"a limited

agreement."

The subdued American response gave Saddam Hussein big political success since the invasion of Kuwait. that the

United States would not intervene, especially

quickly,

and he had been

right.

The

fall

his first

He had calculated if

he withdrew

of Arbil had no political

repercussions in the United States. Despite pleas from his advisers,

SADDAM MOVES NORTH

245

Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole was loath to make

it

a campaign issue, conscious perhaps of the existence of a public

record of his

own fawning encounter with Saddam Hussein while on

a visit to Iraq before the invasion of Kuwait.

The impact of the capture of Arbil was Middle East than

in the

far greater in Iraq

United States or Europe. In Jordan, Prime

He

Minister al-Kabariti remembers calling "the Americans." don't

want anything

what happened;

With the

to

do with you.

was something

it

and the

It

said, "I

wasn't an embarrassment,

like treason."

of Arbil, the tide of battle in Kurdistan swiftly

fall

turned. Barzani's forces were

now routing the PUK without any fur-

ther aid from the Iraqis. Talabani's forces, additionally demoralized

by

their leader's foolish claim that the Iraqis

ers with chemical

vention),

fell

back

were aiding the

weapons (he hoped thereby to provoke U.S. in disarray

tion

for their lives.

between the

made

their

way

KDP

inter-

toward the Iranian border.

Meanwhile, the surviving members of the

were running

attack-

None knew

and the

Iraqi

INC

in

Kurdistan

the extent of the coopera-

Mukhabarat.

Many

of them

directly to Zakho, close to the Turkish border, but

some two hundred and fifty were trapped in Salahudin in the alKhadra Hotel, which had long served as their headquarters. Not far away, the house formerly inhabited by their CIA friends, who had often promised them that there was a detailed evacuation plan in the event of a disaster such as was now happening, stood empty and under KDP guard. There had indeed been an evacuation plan, but only for Americans. The INC members were desperate to leave but fearful that the KDP would hand them over to Baghdad before they reached Turkey.

During those tense days, the smell of fear and defeat was almost

tangible. Iraqis are often chain-smokers, but the sur-

vivors of the massacres in Arbil

They

arette.

in the hotel

sat in

seemed

to live

an office on overstuffed

from cigarette sofas,

to cig-

beneath a wall

poster showing Saddam's famous victory arch of crossed sabers in

Baghdad

"We leaders.

collapsing in ruin before the rising star of the

expect death

is

coming," said

"There are Iraqi agents everywhere.

weapons. The

KDP is just

INC.

Ahmed al-Nassari, one of their

We cannot abandon our

an agent of Saddam."

On September

15,

OUT OF THE ASHES

246

there was a near riot as they milled about in the forecourt of the

al-

Khadra, clutching their submachine guns and waiting to board ten blue-and-white buses and two trucks, which were to drive them to

Zakho. "If we hear nothing from the Kurds,

one of them

For several nights they waited, sion to leave. Ironically, the

INC,

as well as of the

Kurdistan. to

will

simply go," said

dieir nerves cracking, for permis-

KDP may have delayed the exodus of the

Kurds and

aid agencies, because they

wanted

we

in desperation.

Iraqis

who had worked with

However much Barzani

distrusted the United States,

keep the no-fly zone enforced by its warplanes

in

he

as insurance

However, press reports of the

against a full-scale Iraqi reoccupation.

phght of these people were surfacing

in

Washington, shaming the

administration into at least putting pressure on the get to the border.

foreign

were a symbol of American involvement

KDP to help them

An anonymous administration official told the Wash-

ington Post on September 9 that diere would be no attempt to actually

INC members, excusing this morally questionable decision on the grounds that the CIA had "merely financed the group, rescue the stranded

not directed the

CIA

its activities

officers in

[Iraqi National]

time to

flee."

CIA officials

inside Iraq." Furthermore, said the official,

Salahudin "had provided advance warning to the

Congress of the Iraqi assault on

FinaUy, Karim Sinjari, the

Khadra

Arbil, giving

it

ample

Reminded of this remark, Ahmad Chalabi observes "are not known for their veracity."

to say the

KDP head of security,

that

arrived at the

al-

INC could leave. They left behind about twenty of who complained that they had not been paid for

their Kurdish guards,

sixteen months. Their story turned out to

When Ahmad

KDP given

Chalabi had

first

come

be

as sad as that of the

to Salahudin,

INC.

he had asked the

for guards who were especially trustworthy, and was therefore members of the Barzani tribe who had survived the massacre of

1983 because they had escaped or, in most cases, were children.

"I lost

my father and three uncles when they were taken with the eight thousand Barzanis in 1983," said Niyaz Salem

INC

headquarters.

He

he stood in the abandoned flight

of the INC: "They

left the Kurds, apart from a few. We We don't know if they were CIA and we don't care."

took aU the Arabs and betrayed.

as

spoke bitterly of the

feel

Across Kurdistan the same scene was being repeated wherever

SADDAM MOVES NDRTH Kurds or

Iraqis

24

On September 3,

had worked with foreign agencies.

just as the first cniise missiles

were being

fired at Nassariyah, the

Pentagon had ordered the evacuation of the alUed Mihtary Coordi-

The MCC had played a progressively when the allies had first intervened in Kurwere reduced further when U.S. aircraft acci-

nation Center at Zakho.

reduced

role since 1991,

distan. Its activities

down two

dentally shot

U.S. helicopters in 1994, but

remained a

it

symbol of allied protection of Kurdistan. Within a few days of the evacuation of American,

MCC

aUied officers, the long, gray satellite

dishes from

its

roof,

One man,

bly frightened.

glish, said: "Iraqi

foreigners

amnesty, glish,

is

law

When we

was not

just

who

felt

agencies

They were

all visi-

heard that Saddam had offered an

frightened."

bitterly: 'Tes, I

of those corrupted Kurds It

States.

and

anybody

speaking perfect American-accented En-

we were even more

he added

United

for

extremely clear. Anybody who cooperates with

is

a traitor.

building, sprouting aerials

had become a holding station

in northern Iraq associated with the

and other

British,

Complimented on

speak good English because

his

En-

am one

I

who deal with foreigners." Iraqis who had worked v^th American

Kurds and

threatened. At Diyana, close to the northern

end

of the Hamilton Road, the Mines Advisory Group, a British charity,

employed laid

fifty

Kurds

remove antipersonnel and antitank mines

to

during the war along Iraq's border with Iran.

work looking

for aging

mines with rusting

It

was dangerous

trip wires in

growth, but this was not what worried the fifty-odd

Diyana camp. at

an

When we

article in the

visited

at

the

them, they were nervously looking

September 12

which they passed from hand

the under-

men

issue of Babel, Uday's newspaper,

to hand. It contained a

government

statement spelling out the terms of an amnesty for Iraqi citizens

who had worked

for foreigners.

The men

in the

camp were

inter-

ested in a wide-ranging exclusion clause covering not only those guilty of murder, rape, also those

who

and the

theft of

government property but

"spied for a foreign center."

definition of espionage

had every reason

is

The

Iraqi government's

notoriously elastic and the

to fear that

it

might be expanded

war. Barzani

had swept

all

specialists

to include them.

While they waited, the pendulum swung again civil

mine

in the

Kurdish

before him in his counterattack after

OUT OF THE ASHES now

the capture of Arbil and

triumph of what seemed hke

KDP

the

leader was flushed with the

But Talabani s troops had

total victory.

retreated too fast to suffer heavy casualties. In the hidden valleys and

mountain fastnesses along the Iranian border, they regrouped and prepared to counterattack

by

Iran, they

in their turn.

earher.

October

13,

reequipped

swept out of their mountains and drove back the KDP.

The flight of Barzani's men was But the

PUK

stopped

Baghdad made

Arbil.

On

tried to retake the

it

city.

speedy as that of the

as

at the

clear that

it

PUK a month

bridge at Degala, just before

would use

There was a new referee

its

tanks

if

Talabani

in Kurdistan.

Saddam emerged as the clear winner from the Kurdish civil war of 1996. He had shown the Hmits of U.S. strength and resolve. He had eliminated Kurdistan

haven for the CIA and

as a safe

its

friends.

The INC suffered a blow from which it would find it hard to recover. Some ninety-six of its members were executed at Qushtapa and another thirty-nine shot fifty

were

With

zation.

in Arbil itself,

killed in the fighting. It his victory,

while between forty and

was a heavy loss

Saddam

for a small organi-

lifted the trade

embargo he had

enforced on Kurdistan since the end of 1991. Cheap Iraqi gasohne could

now flow north unimpeded,

By

moving

to control the

distan.

Some

most

visible

could the secret police.

Uday's definition of espionage island of

Guam

in the

northern

until the presidential election

United

evidence of the disaster in Kur-

6,500 Iraqis and Kurds

their families as well as others

to the

as

the end of September, the administration in Washington was

—members of the

who might have

—were

Pacific.

was

INC and

qualified

under

evacuated to the remote

Here they were sequestered

safely over before being admitted

States.

Plucked from northern Iraq by the vagaries of war, pohtics, and

new immigrants might have thought that the worst of their problems were over when they reached American soil. covert action, these

For the

vast majority, this

was

true.

But others found themselves the

victims of an extraordinary series of blunders by the

FBI and the

Immigration and Naturalization Service.

to imagine a

It is difficult

clearer example of the callous ignorance habitually exhibited

by the

U.S. government toward Saddam's opponents and, indeed, to Iraq

SADDAM MOVES NORTH and the Middle East

in general than the cSSe of the six refugees

who

Saddam only to find themselves in an American jail. While on Guam, the entire body of refugees was investigated by agents of the FBI assigned to ferret out any agents of Saddam, or other threats to U.S. national security, who might have infiltrated the group. The FBI agents were normally based in the United States, so to educate them in tlie intricacies of Iraqi and Kurdish politics, they were given a classified briefing by the CIA that lasted for forty-five minutes. fled

Thus equipped, the agents

One office,

set out for

of the agents, Jennifer

P.

Guam

and began

their work.

Rettig of the FBI's Chicago field

grew suspicious while interviewing

Hashim

resistance fighter

Qadir Hawlery. Hawlery asserted, in Arabic, that he had spent fighting in the "Kurdish liberation

bom U.S.

his life

movement," a phrase the Egyptian-

Marine who had been pressed into service

as

an interpreter

chose to shorten in translation to "KLM." Rettig had never heard of the

KLM, and immediately deduced that it was a previously unknown

and therefore highly suspect

terrorist organization. In

consequence,

the unfortunate Hawlery was separated from his wife and seven chil-

dren and consigned to the Los Angeles County jail for the next eighteen months while his lawyers fought immigration service efforts to

deport him back to Saddam s Iraq and certain death.

Another of the cases concerned Major Safa

al-Battat,

become

deserted from the Iraqi army in 1991 and had gone on to

hero of the Iraqi opposition.

fought in the southern marshes against the Iraqi

Thallium

a

A native of Basra, he joined the INC and army

In 1994, he was

poisoned with thallium, a poison commonly used against visiting Kurdistan.

who had

is

rats,

when

favored by Iraqi security because

it is

very slow-acting, allowing the poisoner to get away before his victim dies. Al-Battat

would

aged to get him to pital in Cardiff.

certainly have expired

Britain,

where he was

had

his friends not

man-

successfully treated at a hos-

He could have stayed and enjoyed a peaceful life in the

United Kingdom, but instead volunteered to return to northern Iraq

where he became one of the INC's senior September 1996, he was his official interviewer.

airlifted to

The

military

commanders. In

Guam, where he

told his story to

—

interviewer, however, concluded

having confused thallium with Valium

—

that

possibly

he was taking thallium

for

OUT OF THE ASHES

ZSD

recreational purposes, as well as being an undercover Iraqi agent. At

the time of this writing he was

send him back to

Mark Merfalen

Iraq.

still

in prison, appealing the decision to

Testimony in the case revealed that FBI agent

believed the Iraqis "He an awful lot" and that fellow

agent John Cosenza believed that there

is

"no

guilt in the

Arab world,

only shame."

As 1996 drew

to a close,

Saddam had reason

to celebrate.

He had

scored three significant victories in the course of the year. In February,

he had

artfully lured

Hussein Kamel back to

his

doom;

he had liquidated the most serious conspiracy against

in June,

his rule to

date and had discredited the Iraqi National Accord; in August, he

had once more reasserted

Iraqi influence in Kurdistan

and had

destroyed the INC, in the process exposing the weakness and indifference of American policy toward Iraq. Yet, in the heart of

Saddam's

people, unconnected with any intelligence agency,

the ruling family.

found the means.

capital, a

known

were preparing to

group of

idealistic

young

opposition group or foreign strike a

They had long had

the

dramatic blow against

will;

recently they had

ELEVEN

Uday Takes a

evening Oncedeses drove a cool

is

December 1996, three identical white Merdown Mansour Street, in West Baghdad. The

in

fast

road

Hit

long and straight as

it

passes the white walls of the old race-

track but ends abruptly at the

T junction

with International Street,

forcing cars to slow as they approach the traffic lights.

and night was intersection

is

but

falling,

well-lit

by

this is a

license plates, a telling sign that

involved.

A

was 7:25

p.m.

wealthy neighborhood and the

Anyone

street lamps.

close look might have noticed that

It

all

giving the convoy a

three vehicles bore identical

somebody out of the ordinary was make a closer examination

passerby brave enough to

might have registered the identity of the passenger

in the front seat

of the leading car: Uday, the much-loathed eldest son of Saddam.

He had just come at

from feeding

his pet police dogs,

the Jadriya Boat Club in South Baghdad, and was

a party being

thrown by

his friend

which he kept

now on his way to

and cousin Luai

Khairallah. His

bodyguards, used to Uday's obsessive socializing, were packed into the

two following

cars.

The

party was in a house only a few blocks away,

and Mansour was an area Uday knew weU and where he

was

filled

with security

felt

secure.

It

men in uniform and plainclothes, most of them

guarding the nearby Russian and Jordanian embassies or

tlie

haunts of

OUT OF THE ASHES

252 senior Iraqi

officials, like

self in the late

the Hunting Club, founded by

Saddam him-

1960s after he and his fellow Baathists found themselves

blackballed from ancien regime estabhshments like the

Mansour and

Alwiya clubs.

As the cars neared the intersection, neither Uday nor the bodyguards had any cause to notice a young

man

feet standing nonchalantly outside the

Karkh Sports Club.

eying the

with a sports bag

at his

He was

coming down Mansour Street and had been there

traffic

Mansour

several hours, but without attracting attention.

is

of small shops catering to the well-off Iraqis

able district,

full

in the area,

and the sidewalks are usually crowded with

for

a fashion-

who live cus-

tlieir

tomers.

The waiting man was not alone. Although they made no sign that they knew each other, he had three companions nearby, also with

Two lingered outside the busy Ruwad, a restaurant on opposite comer of Mansour Street. A third stood by a Toyota

sports bags.

the

pickup truck and a Toyota Super Salon sedan parked since earlier in the day on a nearby side street.

White Mercedeses are not common side the sports club

in

had plenty of time

Baghdad. The

man

out-

to identify his target.

As

Uday's car approached, he reached down, unzipped his bag, and

took out the Kalashnikov automatic the butt of the

rifle,

he stepped into the

crucial role in the operation

cedes while the two

rifle

men

was

to

kill

stowed

street

inside.

Unfolding

and opened

fire.

His

the driver of the lead Mer-

in front of the restaurant attacked the rest

of the convoy. As he began to shoot, the others also produced

AK-

47s from their sports bags, each with four magazines holding thirty

rounds of ammunition apiece, and closed in on the

The lets.

cars.

lead driver was almost instantly torn apart by the hail of bul-

Everything appeared to be going as the attackers had planned.

For months, they had been watching Uday as he roamed across Baghdad. Always, he took the wheel of the

why, that night, ing

away

December

12,

car They never discovered

he decided not

at the driver, the first

that his real target

first

gunman

to drive himself Blaz-

did not immediately realize

was on the passenger side of the

however, one of the

car.

Seconds

later,

men firing from outside the Ruwad saw that Uday,

crouched down under the dashboard, was

still

unscathed. Shifting his

UDAY TAKES A HIT

253

aim, he poured the rest of his magazine into the most hated

man

in

Iraq at almost point-blank range.

The gunmen had two minutes

calculated that they

to start shooting,

kill

would have a maximum of

Uday, and make their escape.

After ninety seconds, confident that they had accomplished their mission, the three Street

man

men

in the

ambush

gave them covering

street.

down Mansour The fourth gun-

prevent the surviving bodyguards,

fire to

most of whom were wounded or

in a state of shock,

The

of the Mercedeses and giving chase. their

party ran

and around the comer into the side

from getting out

men jumped

four

from the scene. Both the cars were stolen and had been false plates

fitted

with

showing they came from Anbar, a province west of

Baghdad famous that this

A

into

two getaway vehicles, the pickup and the sedan, and sped away

made

it

for

its

loyalty to

less likely

Saddam. The attackers figured

they would be stopped

at checkpoints.

diplomat from the nearby embassy of Jordan

who

diplomat was convinced that he was dead after seeing him final,

on

arrived

the scene as the shooting ended recognized the bleeding Uday. hit

The

by the

prolonged burst of gunfire from some nine feet away. Other

eyewitnesses said he was covered in blood, but they could not

how seriously he was

injured.

Uday was rushed

to

tell

Ibn Sina Hospital,

where Cuban doctors found he had been hit by eight bullets. Saddam himself soon arrived at the emergency room, where the Cubans Iraqi

finally

woman,

were able

that his son

to tell him, through a Spanish-speaking

would

live.

The

translator said later that

the Iraqi leader looked deeply relieved at the news.

Bad news about the

health of the

secret in Iraq, but rumors that

first

on the it

Iraqi

Uday had been

in a telling

media

"slightly

measure of Uday's

economy, the Baghdad stock market crashed

as

was announced that Uday's group of companies, which

dominated the market, had ceased

trading.

the dinar, always a reliable indicator of its

normally a state

seriously injured. So the

quickly reported the attack, stating that

soon as

is

were already spreading across Baghdad

Saddam himself had been

wounded." The following morning, grip

family

The exchange rate for plummeted to

crisis in Iraq,

lowest level in ten months.

In their lonely house in Tikrit, Raghad and Rina, the widows of

OUT OF THE ASHES

254 Hussein Kamel and

his

brother

who Hved in man

brated the shooting of their brother, the

bitter isolation, cele-

they regarded as pri-

marily responsible for the downfall and murder of their husbands.

The government took time to admit the severity of Uday s wounds. At first it was more interested in publicizing the fact that he was still alive.

Three days

after the shooting,

had telephoned the

games

in the

Iraqi national soccer team,

competing in the Asian

United Arab Emirates, "to bless the team s

Iraqi Journalists Union, of which its

Baghdad radio announced that he efforts."

The

Uday was head, held a ceremony at Uday Saddam Hussein had sur-

headquarters "to celebrate that

vived the sinful incident to which he was subjected on Thursday evening."

They slaughtered a sheep

that their chairman

On

had

show their "overwhelming joy"

to

survived.

the following day, there was the

other casualties.

The

Iraqi

media did

first official

Iraqi

this obliquely

mention of

by announcing

Saddam had ordered

that during a visit to the Ibn Sina Hospital

that

who were "seriously wounded in the cowardly attack" receive same medical care as his son. It did not say if they were bodythe those

guards or passers by caught in the crossfire. In the meantime,

up

to

two thousand people had been arrested,

including hundreds of hapless shopkeepers and residents of

Even Sabawi and Watban, Saddams

sour.

half-brothers

and

Manbitter

enemies of Uday, were reportedly among those questioned. Watban

was

suffering from the

still

mous

wounds

by Uday at the infaKamel had fled to Jordan

inflicted

party on the night that Hussein

Uday himself, according to rumors among well-informed circles in Baghdad, later even

almost eighteen months before. circulating

expressed the unworthy suspicion that his father might have had a role in the assassination attempt.

This was the most serious blow ever struck at the ruling family,

but no one had any idea

who was behind

it,

not that there was any

shortage of claimants for the credit. Al-Dawa, the venerable Shia militant

group that had existed since 1958, put out a statement

Beirut saying

it

was responsible

for trying to

kill

Uday. This boast

was not widely believed because al-Dawa had made few

Baghdad

since the early 1980s. In addition, the group was

be very much under the control of

Iran,

whose

in

rulers

attacks in

known

to

would be

UDAY TAKES A HIT by supporting a plot

unlikely to provoke Iraq

More

son.

Dalaim

to

kill

credible was a claim from Kuwait by a

tribe that the assassination

was

in

the president s

member

of the

revenge for the murder of

Mohammed Mazlum al-Dalaimi, tortured before his execu-

General

tion in 1995.

In the West, intelligence agencies were as baffled as

Saddam by

the dramatic shooting in Mansour. After having been seen running for their cars that night, the

gunmen had

utterly vanished, leaving

only a haze of rumor and conjecture behind. Years of plotting by exiled opposition groups,

failed to inflict as

$100 million

bombing

tion the high-tech

much

as a scratch

of his immediate family.

Six

Ismail

months

later,

CIA money,

on Saddam or a

Now someone

Uday himself and then make

shoot

in

not to

single

had managed

to

all

member

to locate

and

a clean getaway.

a fresh-faced Iraqi in his late twenties

Othman came

men-

during the Gulf War, had

efforts

London and

related to

named

one of the present

authors the real story of the attack and those behind

it.

In 1991, following the chaos and ruin inflicted on Iraq after Sad-

dam Husseins

Kuwaiti adventure, a group of weU-educated young

people in Baghdad founded an opposition group. They called Nahdali"

—"The Awakening." Like other groups, these young

opposed the

dictatorship,

sectarian lines,

opposed the

it

"al-

idealists

division of Iraq along racial

and

and supported democracy. But there the resemblance

to better-known pohtical parties ended. Exile groups such as the Iraqi

National Congress solicited publicity through conferences, interviews,

and

Web

sites,

attracting thereby not only funds

from foreign

intelli-

gence agencies but also the unblinking scrutiny of Iraqi intelligence.

Al-Nahdah remained a It

did not have

whose

activities

its

totally

underground organization.

origins in the Shia or Kurdish communities,

the regime always carefully monitored. Most of

its

members were well educated, graduates from colleges in Baghdad. Many of them were women. The leader was Ali Hamoudi, an electrical engineer. His deputy was a woman named Raja Zangana, who had

a job in the civil service.

''We studied

how left-wing

Latin American groups survived under

repression by military dictatorships," explains

organized

itself into

Othman. The group

hermetically sealed cells in order to survive any

OUT OF THE ASHES arrests

—and the

ciilled

"dead

that

inevitable torture

cells,"

which were

—among

inactive until

were eUminated. Al-Nahdah was

its

members.

needed

also careful to

It

had

so-

to replace those

Umit

nications with the world outside Iraq. Iraqi intelligence

its

commu-

had a proven

record of success in intercepting links between opposition groups in

Baghdad and

their headquarters in Kurdistan or

Amman.

Ali

Hamoudi, the secretary

any

member of al-Nahdah who traveled abroad was

lated

from the

general, instituted a policy

rest of the organization.

gence heard rumors that such a group or even find outsiders

it.

Therefore,

under which

automatically iso-

At one point, Jordanian existed,

intelli-

but failed to penetrate

"Their security was very, very good," says one of the few

who ever came

to

know them.

Early on, they considered emulating the Latin Americans and

launching an armed struggle against the regime. But by 1994, according to

Othman, the group decided

enough

that while they

were not strong

to launch regular guerrilla warfare, they could carry out selec-

"We thought the regime had four pillars," says Oth-

tive assassinations.

man. "Saddam himself, Uday, Uday's younger brother, Qusay, and their cousin Ali

Hassan al-Majid."

They considered quickly concluded

which the

the option of assassinating

Saddam Hussein, but

was impossible owing

tliat this

to the care with

They were aware that even know where he was at any particular time. other hand, was a more viable target because of his hec-

Iraqi leader concealed himself.

his senior ministers did not

Uday, on die tic social life

that, aside

and frequent business meetings. Al-Nahdah

also

diought

from Saddam himself, he was the leader whose elimination

would do most to destabilize the regime. "After Saddam, Uday had the most

authority," says

Othman. "He would often make decisions with-

out consulting his father.

group began to track Their

first

his

We

decided to

movements

in

kill

Uday."

Members

Baghdad.

attempt came in April 1966. Al-Nahdah believed

good information

that

Uday would

of the

visit

it

had

owned in Salman They activated a military turn up. The group faced the a farm he

Pak, an hour's drive southeast of Baghdad. cell

and waited

same problem

for him, but

he

as other Iraqis

failed to

who had considered kiUing senior mem-

bers of the regime over the previous thirty years. "There have always

been Shia willing to die to assassinate leading members of the regime,"

UDAY TAKES A HIT one

says

Iraqi intellectual.

257

"But they neverTiad access to the

intelli-

gence you would need to be successful."

A month first

after die abortive

serious reverse,

been

for

its

arrested at a house

When

attack, al-Nalidah

had

which might have destroyed the group had

system of cutouts. Secretary General Ali

where he was hiding

the great Shia slum hves.

Salman Pak

where almost

in

Saddam

came

not

it

Hamoudi was

City (al-Thawra),

half of the population of

Raja Zangana, his deputy,

its

to visit him, she

Baghdad was

also

detained. Otliman says: "They didn't succeed in getting any information out of him.

He died under torture. She was executed at the end of

September and her body handed back ber."

The

cell structure

unraveling

its

to her brother in early Octo-

of al-Nahdah prevented Iraqi security from

organization.

A member whose

identity they feared

might be revealed by their imprisoned leaders was sent out of the country.

movements of Saddam s inner ciritself. The flight to Amman of Hussein and Saddam Kamel showed how difficult it was for dissident members of his family to cooperate with members of Precise intelligence about the

cle could

come

an opposition

only from within the ehte

who had

dedicated their

lives to

overthrowing the

The breakthrough for al-Nahdah came only because of a blood feud within Saddam s family, which had caused one member to vow revenge against his own clan. In the last months of 1996, al-Nalidali came into contact with Ra'ad regime.

al-Hazaa, a Tikriti and a relative of Saddams.

Up until

1990, al-Hazaa

had been a trusted member of the presidential guard. At that point, career was blighted by the independent actions of a

—a

family

Omar Iraqi

fate suffered

by many

in

Saddam s

Iraq.

al-Hazaa, had formerly been a divisional

member

His uncle. General

commander

in the

army but had retired soon after the outbreak of the war with

Thereafter, the general spent

much

his

of his

of his time at a comfortable

Iran. offi-

home in the Yarmuk district of Baghdad. officer, now in exile, the general was known for drinking heavily at his club and, when drunk, would often cers' club

near his

According to another Iraqi

criticize

Saddam

for his

conduct of the war. The consequences were

inevitable. "In 1990, the general relates.

"He was taken

to al-Ouija

was arrested," the exiled

and

his

officer

tongue was cut out. Then

aUT OF THE ASHES he was executed. His son Farouq was

killed at the

same time, and

the general's house in Baghdad was bulldozed."

Saddam

later

on

inflicted

his

Uday s bedside

showed himself uneasy al-Hazaa

after

he was

from what had happened

at the savage

shot, the Iraqi leader distanced himself

in 1990.

He blamed

the executions on Ali

Hassan al-Majid and Hussein Kamel. By now, the

dead

for a year, but Ali

punishments

At a family gathering around

relatives.

had been

latter

Hassan was present and Saddam was

scathing about his actions. "It was you and Hussein Kamel,"

the dictator, "who caused

and had

me

to execute

not been for your persistence and provocation,

it

I

of his family, and their houses were destroyed on your orders.

Saddam did Hussein Kamel did it."

Hassan or

Although he

lost his

that.

People

son,

would

members

not have embarked on that action. Together you pursued

always be said that

fumed

Omar al-Hazaa and his

It will

will not say that Ali

job as a presidential guard, Ra'ad al-Hazaa

survived the death and disgrace of his uncle.

He

even remained a

Saddams inner family. Most important, he was still a friend of Uday s relative and boon companion Luai Khairallah. By the end of 1996, unknown to the rest of his family, he was in contact with members of al-Nahdah, who realized habitue of the social circle around

that

he could provide the

critical intelligence

they needed.

On December 9, 1996, Ra'ad was having a drink at Luai's house when his host let slip a vital piece of information. "We are planning a Mansour on Thursday," he

party in

said,

and issued an

invitation.

While giving the address, Luai mentioned that Uday was going to be there. Ra'ad immediately passed the

news on

to his contact with al-

Nahdah.

"We

gave the information to our group to be ready in three days'

time," says

the party."

Othman. 'W^e knew the route Uday was Hkely to take to They chose the intersection of Mansour and Interna-

tional streets as the perfect spot to

He

in wait

because

in driving to

Uday would have to pass that way, no matter what direction he was coming from. The long, straight-approach road meant they could see the car coming from some way off and then spring the party

the ambush.

Uday

did not die, but al-Nahdah nonetheless considered their

UDAY TAKES A HIT bold attack a success.

"We proved

259

that thS Iraqi people could

act after the crushing of the uprising in 1991," says

wanted tion

group

end the common sense of hopelessness. The Iraqi opposigone out of the country, with nobody left inside." The

to

had

all

also

greater

still

Othman. "We

if

knew

that the poKtical

damage

to the

regime would be

the assassins could escape undetected and unscathed.

There was chaos

in the area in the

minutes immediately follow-

ing the attack as the security forces frantically reacted to what had

happened. The main roads were sealed already gone.

Othman s

story

is

off,

gunmen had

but the

that they drove west

and took refuge

with a bedouin tribe for four days. There they were joined by Ra'ad

made their way to Jordan. He says that because they knew Iraqi security would expect

al-Hazaa, after which they

they chose

them

this

route

all

to escape to Iraqi Kurdistan or Iran,

each of which

is

less

than

three hours' drive from Baghdad. It is

not a likely

and

its

not

know

tribes

story.

Western Iraq

would be unlikely

at a

time

when

is

to give sanctuary to

Iraqi security

looking for Uday's attackers. vice

largely uninhabited desert,

is

Nor would

men

they did

was scouring the country

Jordan,

whose

security ser-

thoroughly infiltrated by Iraq, be a safe refuge. Al-Nahdah

had considered sending the gunmen advised not to go because

Saddam s

to Kurdistan but

"we were

agents were very active there

since the invasion of Arbil." Instead, according to unimpeachable

sources, al-Hazaa

and the gunmen took the obvious course and

escaped over the Iranian border.

Once in Iran, their problems were not over. The Iraqi government was officially demanding their return. They feared that Iranian security, in an undercover deal with Baghdad, might hand them back. They therefore got in touch with Sayid Majid al-Khoie, the leading Shia clergyman from Najaf

who was

in exile in

London.

Explaining what they had done, they asked him to intervene with the

They also wanted to make sure that if they could not stay in Iran, they would be allowed to go to a third country where they would be safe. The cleric persuaded the Iranians to coopauthorities in Tehran.

erate, although the authorities in

members

Tehran insisted that the al-Nahdah

avoid any mention of their escape to Iran (hence the misin-

formation about the escape to Jordan). Eventually the

gunmen

OUT OF THE ASHES moved on in

though their neighbors

to Afghanistan, posing as Iranians,

Kabul were perplexed about the origin of "the young

men who

arrived in their street speaking such poor Farsi."

The core of Baathist leader,

former

Saddam appointed three difwho was behind the December 12 attack,

in exile, says that

ferent investigations into

but without success. later, in

A

the organization remained in Baghdad.

now

A

sign of their failure

that almost

is

August 1998, Iraqi security announced that

dozen people involved

in the

tions are that those arrested

it

two years

had arrested a

attempted assassination. All indica-

had nothing

to

do with the attack on

Uday.

The dent.

heaviest blow to

On

February

members gathered suburb

in

2,

fall

on al-Nahdah happened entirely by

ten weeks after the attack on Uday,

for a

meeting

North Baghdad.

at a

It is full

house

acci-

some of its

in al-Kreeat, a pleasant

of trees and well

known

market gardens and busy restaurants lining the bank of the

for

its

Tigris.

Suddenly, one of the al-Nalidah guards saw a soldier climbing over the fence surrounding the house. battle

He immediately opened fire. A gun

broke out, which went on for four hours. "They used rocket-

propelled grenades and destroyed the house over the heads of our people," says Othman. "Eleven people in the house were killed along

with an officer and two soldiers."

The tracked

security forces

had arrived on

tlie

scene not because they had

down al-Nahdah, but through sheer chance. One of the orgamembers had recently bought a car, not realizing that it was

nization's

stolen

and

documents forged.

its

On

a routine check, the police dis-

covered the stolen car outside the house in al-Kreeat and realized that

some

official

sort of

meeting was going on inside (always grounds for

suspicion in Iraq).

Othman s

list

of those

who

died in

al-

Kreeat confirms the impression that most members of al-Nahdah are well-educated professionals: Ra'ad Kamil, a pharmacist; Saif Nuri

Mohammed,

a goldsmith; several others

and education

who worked in

the planning

ministries.

In the space of just over a year,

Saddam had seen two of his

sons-

in-law killed, his half-brother shot in the leg, and his eldest son rid-

dled with bullets. Even

if

he was scoring

against the Americans at Arbil

and elsewhere,

significant successes this

was

clearly not a

UDAY TAKES A HIT happy

family. Early in 1997,

gather around

Uday s bed

to eliminate

were there

—

1

he summoned surviving members to

in the

nary family meeting. All the

26

Ibn Sina Hospital for an extraordi-

pillars

Qusay,

of the regime al-Nalidah wanted

Ah Hassan

Saddam s two

al-Majid,

Watban Saddam may have always intended the tape of what he said to be made public (it found its way to London), since he systematically blames his relatives for many acts of violence and corruption in Iraq previously attributed to himself He also tells them that they owe and Sabawi, as well as the recumbent Uday.

half-brothers

everything to him, inheriting "power, influence, and standing, which

you are using

in the ugliest

way

...

we

are not a monarchy, at least

not yet."

Saddam begins by reminding Ali Hassan

al-Majid that before the

1968 revolution "you were a lance corporal and a driver in Kirkuk."

He

says

one of the reasons he dismissed him

1995 was because he was smuggling grain to

as

defense minister in

Iran. After

throwing in

the recriminations over the killing of General al-Hazaa,

moves

on.

The performance

and Sabawd

know

is

in office of his half-brothers

treated wdth scornful contempt. "You, Watban, must

that the Interior Ministry

Saddam. "As

Saddam Watban

for Sabawi,

was ruined during your term," says

what kind of a security director

he, in a

is

He goes to his office at 1100 He left pubhc security to dishonest elements who

country experiencing such conditions? hours, half asleep.

are stealing people's money.

The

I

had

to execute

some of them."

diatribe continues with a reference to Luai Khairallah,

(unknown sins their

to

Saddam) had accidentally given the al-Nahdah

who

assas-

chance to intercept Uday. Luai had reached agreements

"with Mafia and drug traders to smuggle sums of

dered

in Iraq."

much

of his bile

He is

money to be

laun-

then accuses Qusay of being two-faced, but

reserved for Uday: "Your behavior, Uday,

and there could be no worse behavior than yours.

know what kind of person you

are," says the father.

cian, a trader, a people's leader, or a

you have done nothing

for this

.

.

.

We

bad,

want

to

"Are you a poUti-

playboy? You must

homeland or

is

this people.

know that The oppo-

site is true."

By the time Saddam spoke, it was evident that Uday was too seriwounded to return to his former role as his father's viceroy.

ously

— OUT OF THE ASHES

262

The Information Ministry admitted he had been hit by eight bullets. The government tried and failed to send him to France for treatment. Although by 1998 he was driving again, he had almost entirely lost

the use of one

leg. Iraqis

hopefully circulated a rumor that he

had become impotent. According Abbas Jenabi, who the case.

fled Iraq in

Uday continued

as

young

business and was

many

was

far

from

as four different

He had certainly not

as eleven.

still

this

active in a multitude of prof-

smuggling operations, particularly through

itable sanctions-busting his Asia

former friend and editor

to have sex with as

women a day, some of them lost his zest for

to his

September 1998,

and Kani companies.

More

important, and despite Saddam's bedside strictures,

gradually began to

meddle

in politics again,

of disrupting relations in the inner family.

aim

offensive, this time taking

ambassador to the

came under

UN

in

at his

Geneva.

performing

By

attack in Uday's newspaper,

his usual role

1998, he was on the

uncle Barzan, Officials

Uday

still

serving as Iraqi

connected with Barzan

which

also placed

renewed

emphasis on the close relations between the proprietor and Saddam "the beloved apple of his fathers eye

.

.

.

the Hon's eldest cub."

August 30, 1998, Barzan was recalled to Baghdad. At to leave Switzerland. sein,

first

A replacement ambassador arrived,

On

he refused

Khalid Hus-

formerly Uday's office director at the Olympic committee. After

initially

hinting that he was resigning from the Iraqi foreign service

and remaining

in Switzerland as a private citizen,

Barzan returned to

Baghdad. Despite Uday's survival and eventual resurgence, al-Nahdah, without

money

or resources, succeeded in doing

more damage

to

the regime than the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi National

Accord combined.

It

had thereby damaged,

showed

that the family

was vulnerable, and

not destroyed, the aura of invincibifity that

if

surrounded Saddam and

his

immediate

kin.

attempted assassination of Uday came too

But

late.

in

The

one sense the killing

of Hus-

IN As conspiracy, and the entry of Iraqi made Saddam stronger than at any other time

sein Kamel, the defeat of the

tanks into Arbil had since 1991.

The

Iraqi leader

was preparing

to

go on the offensive.

TWELVE

Endgame

In

her four years as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,

Madeleine Albright had staked a claim to be regarded

Hussein's most unremitting foe. in a

TV

1996

drens' lives

famous at

Saddam

to the question

posed

interview regarding the cost of sanctions in Iraqi chil-

—"We

in the

Her answer

as

think the price

is

worth

it"

—which

became

Arab world, only underscored her hawkish credentials

home on the

issue

and did nothing to impede her eventual eleva-

tion as secretary of state.

Soon that she

after Mrs. Albrights arrival in

would be making

a

Washington, word spread

major policy address on the subject of

Iraq at Georgetown University. Expectations ran high, on

all sides.

Before the speech, a prominent businessman of Iraqi extraction,

known

to

be

in close

touch with Nizar Hamdoon, Saddam's

UN

word among the Iraqi exile community in Washington that the speech would contain dramatic new initiatives. On the appointed day, March 26, 1997, Mrs. Albright strode onto the dais and announced that "We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons envoy, was circulating

of mass destruction, sanctions should be

made

clear,

would remain. Almost

six

years

lifted."

Sanctions, she

had passed since Robert

a

Z&A

OUT OF THE ASHES

M. Gates, President Bush's deputy National Security adviser, had Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, and that in the meantime "Iraqis will pay the price." Nothing, it seemed, had changed. There could have been no clearer message to Saddam that he had httle to gain in further cooperation with the UN inspectors. Even had he been of a mind to yield the secrets of the weapons he had so tenaciously concealed since 1991, Albright had told the world declared that sanctions would remain as long as

that

he would gain nothing by doing

Yet while stating that tion

Saddam s

weapons was unconnected

United States

still

so.

putative arsenal of mass-destruc-

maintenance of sanctions, the

to the

emphasized the importance of the weapons

inspectors' mission, the execution of which, paradoxically,

on

Iraqi cooperation

and

assistance. It

was up to the

depended

Iraqis to escort

where weapons or documents might be hidden. The Iraqis had repeatedly demonstrated their power to exclude the inspectors from any site if they so wished. The extensive program of remote cameras and other sensors monitoring former weaponsinspectors to sites

and laboratories could be removed with a simple

related factories

phone

call

from Baghdad. In that event, the only remaining sanction

United States and

for the

renewed bombing

allies

its

offensive.

would be

military action

But the threat of force was a diminish-

ing asset because, as the failure to secure support for

dam

—

in retaliation for the Arbil operation

had

bombing Sad-

vividly demonstrated,

every potential military confrontation highlighted declining support for the

By

United States both

1997, recalls a senior

tions crisis

in the

Middle East and around the world.

Unscom

condemning Iraq had

"all

United

States.

Saddam,

Security Council resolu-

the impact of traffic tickets." Thus, a

over Iraqi cooperation with

for the

official.

as

Unscom

carried significant risks

he well recognized, could choose

the timing of those crises. As 1997 went on, he had plenty of opportunity to

do

so.

The

inspectors

were

testing the hmits of the Iraqi

leader's patience. first arrived, Saddam had been forced to up much. His initial expectation that his Unscom problem would last only a few months and that the inspectors could easily be fooled or

Ever since the inspectors

give

bribed had soon been proved

false, as

we have

seen. Thereafter, the

EN DGAM E

265

Up until The summer of 1995, they had successfully concealed dieir most modem chemical capabilities the VX nerve agent as well as tlieir homegrown missile program and had waged a

Iraqis

fighting retreat.

—

almost the entire biological of Hussein that they

effort.

Kamel had brought

Then,

in

disaster.

had been successfully fooled by

inspectors set to

work

to

uncover

now knew

their Iraqi opponents.

"Not much

is

tlie

The

Security Council that

unknown about

proscribed weapons capabilities. However, what for cannot

officials

tlie full truth.

In April 1997, Rolf Ekeus reported to after six years of work,

August 1995, the defection

Unscom

is still

be neglected." Even a few long-range

would be a source of deep concern

if

Iraq's retained

not accounted

missiles,

he wrote,

those missiles were fitted with

the most deadly of chemical nerve agents, VX. "A single missile war-

head

filled

many

millions of lethal doses in an attack

with the biological warfare agent anthrax could spread

on any

city" in the

Middle

East. Ironically, publicity

about Saddam's secret arsenal, attendant on

him project a chill of fear over his neighweapons was psychological. In 1991, the Kurds had thought they were under chemical attack and had fled in panic when Saddam's troops dropped flour on diem from Ekeus's investigations, helped

bors.

The primary

helicopters. "I ical

lie

effectiveness of these

awake

at night

worrying about those terrible biolog-

weapons," a tremulous King Fahd of Saudi Arabia once told a

iting

Kuwaiti diplomat. To divest

Saddam of the

vis-

psychological advan-

Unscom would have to find or account for every single missile, all the VX, and every pound of anthrax, as well as the machines and materials used to make them.

tage he derived from his tiny but famous arsenal,

That was almost certainly an impossible undertaking, but even in making the attempt, the inspectors

would have

to penetrate

and defeat the

system of concealment created on Saddam's orders in the early sum-

mer of 1991. As with so much

else,

come to light The sudden appearance of the huge cache

the existence of this system had

thanks to Hussein Kamel.

of "chicken farm" documents together with the the

Unscom

rally

fact,

soon deduced by

sleuths, that certain categories of files that

would natu-

belong in such a collection of records were absent led them to the

inescapable conclusion that the missing documents must

still

exist

OUT OF THE ASHES under

tlie

protective guard of a concealment apparatus dedicated to

frustrating

Unscom. Hussein Kamel's cousin and fellow

defector,

Major Izz al-Din al-Majid of the Special Republican Guard, who had actually

had

missile parts buried in his

own garden

in

Baghdad, pro-

vided confirmation and a wealth of detail in interviews with

Unscom

officials.

As we have seen, concealment was trusted

members of

hands of especially

in the

elite security organizations:

the Mukhabarat,

the Special Republican Guards, and the Special Security Service.

Once upon vision of

a time, this arrangement had operated under the super-

Hussein Kamel, but after

to the capable

his departure, control

and hardworking Qusay, operating

with the immensely powerful private secretary.

had passed

in conjunction

Abed Hamid Mahmoud, Saddams

Not everyone, of course,

in the twenty-thousand-

man

Special Republican Guards, and the Special Security Organiza-

tion,

which comprised a

in the exercise.

Those

total

directly

few hundred, selected on the

of two thousand people, was involved

concerned numbered no more than a basis of absolutely

alty and, usually, a direct family relationship

unquestioned

loy-

with the leader.

At the end of 1995, Ekeus commissioned Nildta Smidovich, the

mustachioed Russian expert

who

to begin leading an inspection

"mechanism"

maddened

senior Iraqi

officials,

on the

specifically

for concealing missile parts, tools, and,

most impor-

documents. Since the weapons were being guarded by the

tant,

same that

so

team targeted

security organizations that protected

meant Smidovich and

his

team would

Saddam Hussein inevitably

close to the central nervous system of the regime

himself,

be getting very

itself.

In

March

and June 1996, Smidovich had tried to get into what became known as "sensitive sites" occupied by these security organizations and had

been blocked, or

hammer

by the guards. Ekeus managed to June 1996 with Tariq Aziz under

at least delayed,

out a compromise in

which the teams would be allowed into such ing month, the

team was blocked again

places.

at a

But the follow-

Special Republican

Guard camp, although they saw long, round objects looking the world like Scud missiles being hurriedly driven away.

had a ready explanation: The

The

for

all

Iraqis

admittedly suspicious "Scud-Uke

EN DBAM E objects" being

removed from the

pillars that coincidentally

site

resembled

267

were, they claimed, concrete

missiles.

As the Unscom teams continued their hunt, they found that time

and again diey were their descent to

just too late. Despite stringent efforts to

on a suspected

site

make

a total surprise, the Iraqis appeared

have been forewarned in the nick of time and the team would arrive

to see trucks speeding

intelligence

away

had managed

in the opposite direction. Either Iraqi

some way of listening in on the lastUnscoms Baghdad headquarters in the

to find

minute planning sessions

at

Canal Hotel or there was a mole inside the organization. Hussein

Kamel had unmasked Ekeus's individual

had never had access

translator as an Iraqi agent, but that

to information as sensitive as this.

The Unscom offices in the Canal had been modernized in 1994 and were equipped with the best American and that the Iraqis

in countersurveillance technology that

British intelligence could provide,

had succeeded

in planting a bug.

Russian scientist assigned to the teams ciously inquisitive about

staff

always

upcoming "no-notice"

fore, in strictest secrecy, a

commission

who

making

it

unlikely

There was, however, a

seemed

suspi-

inspections. There-

few of the senior members of the special

planned and executed a sting operation. With only

the suspect present, they discussed a purported

upcoming

surprise

inspection at a specific location. Sure enough, discreet observation at

the nominated visit.

The

site

Russian,

revealed the guards fuUy prepared for an

who appeared

to have

Unscom

been operating under the

auspices of his country's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, was sent

home amid conditions of deepest secrecy. The penetration of Unscom, using corruptible foreign intelligence agencies diat

Saddam had

dis-

cussed years before with Wafiq al-Samarrai, had been brought to fruition, at least for a while.

If Iraqi intelligence

had scored a coup

against

Unscom, the inspec-

tion

agency had

itself

tion.

Things had

come a long way since Rolf Ekeus had been forced to

turned into a formidable intelligence organiza-

give a personal guarantee for the cash advance from the

UN secretary

generals special fund that had launched the organization.

"We became extremely successful at penetrating the concealment mechanism," says one former Unscom official. "We had gotten

DUT OF THE ASHES

26S into

[i.e.,

developed the

we were

So

ability to intercept] their

only missing them by minutes.

thought that the

first

time

it

as the press

moved

Saddam s

palaces,

was suggesting. This was about the trucks moving around the things

we were

the Special Republican logs to see

may have

was obviously something more.

"This wasn't about biological weapons hidden in

that

Iraqis

might have been just luck, but the sec-

it

ond, third, and fourth time

The

communications.

Guard

who had been

after.

When we went

installations,

driving

into places like

we checked

the drivers'

what truck and where. Our people

knew almost by heart the names of the various people, drivers and so on, who were involved." The units involved in the concealment effort did not operate in isolation. As Rolf Ekeus, the man the Iraqi leader once referred to as the "miserable spy," said after he left Unscom in July 1997: "It is the Special Republican Guards we are interested in, the concealment force. But they are also the protection force for Saddam. He can build new palaces,

he can rebuild the weapons program, but he cannot replace

the Special Guards, because they are the key loyal force.

He

does not

have a replacement."

When

the inspectors did

manage

to penetrate the

and other equally important units

this

and other information germane

saw evidence of other dam:

in pursuit

compounds of

of trucking records

to their enquiries, they inevitably

tasks assigned to these loyal servants of Sad-

who had transAbu Ghraib prison, duty An inspector once opened a

of people to be arrested, logs of drivers

lists

ported prisoners to the grim confines of rosters for standing

door

in

guard

at

the palace.

one of these complexes only

ting at desks wearing headphones.

droppers.

The

to find a

roomful of people

They were the telephone

sit-

eaves-

inspector excused himself and closed the door.

Sometimes the interaction between Unscom

officials

and the

Iraqi

the command bordered on the surreal. Charles Unscom second-in-command, recalls one occasion when he and Roger Hill, who succeeded Nildta Smidovich as chief of the concealDuelfer,

high

ment team, were making an exploratory survey of a presidential site. They had a map but were finding it difficult to figure out the perimeters

of the

site.

beside them.

A

Suddenly a large black Mercedes purred to a rear

window

slid

down,

to reveal

halt

Abed Hamid Mah-

ENDGAME moud, the much-feared

269

presidential secretary. Extending a genial

greeting to the inspectors, Saddam's right-hand help. This

was not

it

grim, snarling face-offs with

minions, the two sides spent so that they

may seem. Despite TV images of Saddam s much time in each others company

as surprising as

Unscom personnel engaged in

man asked if he could

had inevitably become,

if

not friends, at least amiably

civil

with each other. Duelfer had even managed to strike up an amicable relationship with the previously their

shadowy Mahmoud, so he explained

problems widi the map. "Let me see if I can help," said the

Iraqi.

Removing a large cigar from his mouth, he peered at the map and supphed helpful directions. Then, in response to a rapid command, one of his bodyguards opened the trunk of the Hmousine and reached inside. Duelfer wondered what the Iraqi leadership kept in the trunks of their cars to see.

—Kalashnikovs? rocket launchers?—and craned

The bodyguard emerged with a tray of chilled Pepsis.

his

neck

After fin-

ishing their sodas, the Americans thanked their high-powered guide

and he drove off Minutes spot. This

Amer

later,

another large Mercedes purred to a halt

one was white. The window

Rashid, minister for

oil

ating with (and frustrating)

and the

Unscom.

slid

down

official

He

Rashid.

me

to reveal General

too inquired as to what the

Mahmoud had

map. "Nonsense," snorted

in interpreting the

"Abed can't read a map. He probably had it upside down. Let

look." Duelfer explained that they

cise

the same

responsible for negoti-

two inspectors were doing. They explained that Abed

been most helpful

at

were

placement of a particular boundary

still

puzzled by the pre-

line. "Let's

go see," said

Rashid.

The

line in question turned, out to

run along a thirteen-foot-high

wall with a deep, square pit just in front.

surveyed

it

to

check that they were

ping carefully around the

pit.

holes,

three step-

was where the

most of them grouped

firing

at

chest

squads did their work, the

providing temporary storage for dead bodies between

Any

all

No one brought up the fact that the wall

was heavily pitted with buUet height. Clearly, this

The Americans and Rashid

in the correct place,

pit

shifts.

reference to the wall's gruesome function would have been

"an intelligence question,"

i.e.,

raising a matter that lay outside

Unscom's mandate and expressly barred from discussion. So, with

OUT OF THE ASHES

270

the surveying completed, the two inspectors thanked Rashid and

went on

their way.

Rolf Ekeus

finally left

the organization he had created at the

1997. Richard Butler, the Australian diplomat special commissioner,

inspections.

approach.

promoted Scott

and related materials from

Ritter to run the concealment

tors, as a "shell

game."

He

after the shells (weapons, shells."

minded tactic.

Not

"Ritter

aggressive

Iraqi system of shifting the

site to site,

end of

replaced Ekeus as

The former marine was determined on an

He later described the

moving the

who

weapons

one jump ahead of the inspec-

declared that Unscom, rather than going

documents, all

should pursue "the

etc.),

man

the inspectors agreed with this single-

was obsessed with

this

notion that he was finally

going to find the document that exposed 'the architecture of concealment,'

" says

one

official in close

touch with the inspection

effort.

"But

other people wanted to find out what the Iraqis were actually doing,

and that meant looking

By

the

summer

for the

weapons themselves."

of 1997, the main effort of these others was con-

centrated on tracking the elusive remnants of the Iraqi biological

and

VX nerve

dam might

gas programs effort as well as the possibiUty that Sad-

still

have missiles and warheads with which to deliver

these potent agents. Central to their concerns was the lack of evi-

dence sile

to support Baghdad's claim that

warheads and

as

many

as

it

had destroyed the 25 mis-

150 bombs

it

had

filled

with anthrax

and botulinum toxin before the Gulf War. In addition, through the

been

sites

where Iraq

secretly held in 1991

remained unaccounted

insisted

all its

after sifting

forbidden missiles had

and 1992, Unscom announced that two

for.

Other bones of contention included seventeen tons of the "growth media" necessary for reproducing the

toxins, nine

pounds of anthrax, and the possible existence of sprayers

hundred

suitable for

the technically highly difficult task of distributing the anthrax in fine

enough

particles to

be absorbed

in victims' lungs, as well as the true

documentary history of the entire sixth "Full, Final,

gram

in

project.

When

Iraq submitted a

and Complete Declaration" on the

biological pro-

September 1997, Special Commissioner Richard Butler

described

it

as "not

even remotely credible."

The pressure from Unscom was matched by an increasingly defiant

EN DBAM E attitude

from

Unscom

helicopters seized the controls of the

order to prevent them from taking pictures of vehicles

in

leaving a suspect

site,

causing a near crash. In the same week, another

team was blocked from entering a officials at

1

June 1997, an Iraqi "minder" accompanying

Iraq. In

inspectors in one of the

machine

2V

on

site

instructions, said the Iraqi

the gate, "from the highest authority."

Following yet another censorious Security Council resolution

demanding

that Iraq cooperate with the inspectors,

in council with the

mand rize

and

clarify

else.

this

is

"We would

like to

summa-

our position as follows: Iraq has complied with and

all

relevant resolutions.

We demand with

fulfill its

sitting

uniformed notables of the Revolutionary Com-

Council, issued a stern statement:

implemented

Saddam,

.

.

.

There

is

absolutely nothing

unequivocal clarity that the Security Council

commitments toward

Iraq.

to respect Iraq's sovereignty

.

.

.

and

The

practical expression of

to fully

and

totally

lift

the

blockade imposed on Iraq."

With hindsight,

it is

clear that the Iraqi leader

had resolved to go on

the offensive. All he needed was an excuse. That was to

come soon

enough. In September, the obstruction of the inspectors grew

There was another helicopter incident on the

more blatant.

thirteenth.

On

the sev-

enteenth, a team hunting for details of VX production was kept outside the gate of the Iraqi Chemical Corps headquarters for hours while

files

were openly trucked away and other documents burned on the roof of the building.

A week later,

testing laboratory

inspectors

making a routine

encountered several

trying to escape through a back door.

microbiologist

and opened

who was

men

visit to

a food-

carrying briefcases and

Diane Seaman, an American

leading the team, seized one of the briefcases

Inside were kits for testing three deadly organisms as

it.

well as a logbook indicating that the lab had been conducting tests in secret for eight

months under the supervision of the Special Security

Organization.

By the end of October, the crisis was reaching a head. Insisting that Unscom had become no more than an espionage agency operating on behalf of the United States to prolong sanctions, Tariq Aziz announced

on October 29

that

no more Americans would be allowed

work on the inspection teams. Four days

later,

into Iraq to

he announced

that the

— OUT DF THE ASHES

272 U-2

by the United

high-altitude photo-reconnaissance plane lent

Unscom was operating as a spy plane for the Americans.

States to

was presumably unaware

that

with the approval of his superiors with the

news

Israelis.)

A

intelligence

were sabotaging the work of the Unscom long-

effort, in

veyed by remote cameras resumed.

—sharing U-2 photo

These threatening statements were followed by

that the Iraqis

term monitoring

(Aziz

by this time Scott Ritter was routinely

few days

later,

which erstwhile weapons

sites

to ensure that forbidden

were

sur-

work had not

the remaining American inspectors were

expelled from Iraq.

As a U.S.

military riposte to this defiance

appeared to be increas-

ingly inevitable, the familiar features of an Iraqi crisis reappeared. again, Saddam's picture

declared somberly that this was "the gravest international Clintons] presidency."

Once

adorned the covers of news magazines. Time

On

television

and

crisis

of

[Bill

in print, biological warfare

experts solemnly described the massacres that could be perpetrated

with only a minute fraction of the Iraqi leader s presumed stockpile of anthrax. for a

Eminent columnists began sounding like Tikritis,

calling glibly

"head shot" against Saddam, while the nightly network news

played stirring scenes of the U.S. military gearing up for action.

dis-

The

atmosphere summoned up memories of the Gulf War, when White

House correspondents asked President Bush in all seriousness why he was not making greater efforts to kill the president of Iraq. The reality, however, was very different from those heady days. Most important, the coalition built by George Bush had almost completely disappeared. This time the Saudis

not even want to be asked to planes in rity

sia

bombing

Iraq.

made

let their territory

The United

it

clear that they did

be used by U.S. war-

States did not dare ask the Secu-

Council for the authorization to launch an attack for fear that Rus-

or France, both increasingly sympathetic to Iraq's position, would

cast a veto.

As

it

was, Washington was "stunned" by the indifference of

the Security Council to Saddam's expulsion of the American inspectors.

The most severe sanction the council was willing to pass was a ban

on international travel by Iraqi weapons

dam was

scientists,

the

last

people Sad-

likely to allow to leave the country.

The Clinton administration insisted that it had every right to bomb Iraq under existing resolutions, and prepared targeting plans. But here

ENDGAME again, President Clinton

The

and

his advisers

were faced with problems.

targets attacked in the first days of the

choose

—

power

plants, the

Gulf War had been easy to

presumed centers of

other mass-destruction weapons production, self.

Iraqi nuclear

and

Saddam Hussein him-

Subsequent inquiries had revealed that while the power-plant

bombings had done permanent damage ture, they

—al-Atheer

al-Hakam

for nuclear,

Saddam and all other

targeted, let alone destroyed.

important

had simply stayed away from obvious

had escaped unscathed. The for attacking this time

from rooting out

done with high

his

weapons

if

and

advanced by the White House Saddam was preventing Unscom

capabilities, the job

would have

to

be

But no one knew where these weapons and

systems were actually hidden at any particular time. facilities

were "dual

Some

of the sus-

use," with legitimate civilian

among other places, hospitals. The United States could

applications in,

hardly

targets

rationale

was that

explosives.

pected production

mil-

for biological production

had not even been officials

its

any great extent. The most important weapons

itary capabilities to

plants

to Iraq's civilian infrastruc-

had not brought down the regime or even hindered

bomb them.

As Clinton and

Saddam chose

to

his advisers

back

mulled over these awkward choices,

off, at least for

the

moment. Having tested

the strength of the U.S. alliance, he chose to accept mediation from

an old friend, Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov. Primakov

pledged to press for the

lifting

of sanctions. In return, the Iraqi

leader agreed that American inspectors could return to Baghdad.

The Chnton administration greeted the news with reUef. By November 20, the immediate crisis was over. From Saddam s point of view, the confrontation had yielded eminently satisfactory results. The United States had declared that Unscom s right to inspect was an issue on which it was prepared to go to war,

and had then found

of useful

allies.

itself,

except for the British, entirely bereft

Unscom, from being a

turned into an advantage.

threat to the Iraqi leader,

had

He now had the initiative because he could

provoke a confrontation any time he chose, simply by refusing to cooperate. In

pursuing this strategy, Saddam had an unlikely ally (albeit one

with a different agenda), Scott

November 21

as

determined

Ritter,

who

returned to Baghdad on

as ever to search for

Saddam's

secrets.

DUT OF THE ASHES

274

regardless of the consequences

renewed

—which

Iraqi obstniction that in turn

as likely as not

would

would be

necessitate a forceful

U.S. response.

The

realization that the

had by

this

action in the

Ritter, just

hope of garnering more

Unscom

officials

appeared to

rest

"It wasn't just

Commissioner

to rein in the ener-

Madeleine Albright who didn't

whenever he

official indignantly.

that either."

canceled

was not

which he yielded. State Department and

Ritter starting a crisis

Department

him doing

international support,

to Ritter, Special

indignantly deny that Butler was following instruc-

from outside.

want Scott

ler

crises

now came under heavy pressure

getic inspector, pressure to

State

provoke

An aggreswhen they had drawn back from military

what was required. According

Richard Butler

tions

to

time dawned on the Clinton administration.

by

sive effort

at all

power

hands of President Saddam Hussein and Major Scott Ritter

in the

Ritter's

felt like it," says

one

"Richard Butler didn't want

For whatever reason,

for the time being But-

planned inspections.

Meanwhile, both the United States and Iraq were readying them-

The CUnton

selves for a fresh confrontation.

administration had con-

cluded that Saddam had gotten the better of die United States in the

November

crisis

and the Pentagon was dusting of its

casus belli would be the principle of access for

target

Unscom

lists.

The

to the eight

sprawling complexes comprising Saddam's somewhat gaudy palaces, security forces offices, ities

generically

and barracks,

referred

to

as

announced it was denying access to the bait

and embraced the

Saddam was

as well as other

"presidential

sites."

to these areas, the

sites as

government

When

facil-

Iraq

United States rose

the defining issue.

quite ready for a second round. In

November, the

government had admitted the foreign press en masse, a move that yielded ample dividends in the form of sympathetic descriptions of the plight of the Iraqi people after seven years of sanctions.

Now

up once again with journalists and TV crews from around the world. By mid-February, the number had reached

Baghdad began

to

fill

eight hundred. Their all-too-accurate depiction of hospitals without

medicines, schools without books, and mothers without food for their children had a searing impact on international public opinion.

John Paul

II

eloquently expressed the feelings of

Pope

many when he

EN DBAM E

Z75

declared, in an address to the Vatican diplomatic corps in January 1998:

"As

we prepare for a new round of bombings, we cry out in anguish

over seven years of United Nations sanctions against the Iraqi people,

which can only be understood

as biological warfare against a civilian

population. During the Gulf War, U.S. -led coalition forces deliberately targeted Iraq's infrastructure, destroying

food, water

and

sanitation to

its

civilian

its

ability to

provide

population and unleashing dis-

ease and starvation on an unimaginable scale. United Nations reports

claim that over sanctions.

1 million civilians

have died as a direct result of the

UNICEF reports that 4,500 children are dying each month.

As people of faith, we are ashamed that the actions of the UN, whose mission

is

to foster peace, can

be so deliberately directed toward the

sustained slaughter of innocent civilians."

make

Nevertheless, U.S. officials pressed on doggedly to

and gain the necessary support

for

William Cohen sought to rouse European poison that

kills" (actually ricin,

be extracted from oil.

In Iraq,

officials

by

or seven castor beans," also the source of castor

"six

Cohen noted

being added to the target

darkly, "they are

growing hundreds of acres

list.

if

bean

fields

were

A stream of high-ranking American offi-

touring the capitals of the Gulf states failed in

extract

stating that "a

the most toxic substance known) can

of castor beans," leaving his audience wondering

cials

the case

bombing. Defense Secretary

many

even the mildest endorsements for an American

cases to

attack.

The

most telling rejection came from Bahrain, the tiny island-state lying off the coast of Saudi Arabia, long a staunch American area for

Unscom

since

its

ally

and the staging

inception. President Clinton

had personally

spoken with the emir to ensure

his support.

Even

so,

the Bahraini

information minister issued a statement declaring that the United States could not attack Iraq

The Arab

leaders

from

his country.

had not come

to love

Saddam

in the seven

years since the Gulf War. Their chilly attitude toward the

American

pleadings was derived from the fact that no U.S. strike was likely to get rid of the Iraqi leader and also the growing public outrage

among

their subjects over the suffering of ordinary Iraqis. In

and 1991, the pubhc

in the

Gulf and the

rest of the

1990

Arab world had

been comparatively deprived of access to information. (The Saudi government withheld news of the invasion of Kuwait from its citi-

OUT DF THE ASHES

ZV6

zens for forty-eight hours.) They could hsten to the

Monte Carlo

for

news

that their rulers preferred to

local (tightly controlled)

BBC

or Radio

keep out of the

media, but such an audience was, in most

cases, limited. In the 1990s, however, the region

had been swept by

a communications revolution. Arab-language satellite

TV

channels

brought comparatively uncensored news into the homes of anyone with a dish.

The

The

uncontrollable Internet served the same function.

public, thus informed,

United States and

more bombs on

its

was resolutely against support

for the

perceived agent, Richard Butler, in raining

Iraqi children already

decimated by sanctions. Even

the most absolute of monarchs had to pay attention.

The

effect of

brought

home

William

Cohen,

changing patterns in communications was further the

to

and

administration

National

when Madeleine

Security

attempted to market their policy at a "town University.

The event was

citizens challenged

a fiasco.

Amid

Americas "moral

Adviser

hall

Albright,

Sandy Berger

meeting"

at

Ohio State

continuous heckling, angry

right" to

bomb

Iraq.

The

pro-

ceedings, humiliating for Albright, Cohen, and Berger, were televised internationally

by

CNN.

By coupling the

Iraqi

TV ran them in full.

issue of a putative secret Iraqi missile force

with biological weapons with the issue of the presidential ington had given a hostage to fortune. "All diese places," says

ments."

Unscom deputy

we

sites,

armed Wash-

ever believed was in

chief Charlie Duelfer, "was docu-

Any weapons were almost certainly hidden elsewhere. But the among press, public, and politicians that Saddam

impression took hold

was concealing the deadly palaces,

immune from

advised remark to the

missiles in the recesses of his infamous

the attentions of the inspectors. In an

New York

ill-

Times, Richard Butler suggested that

such missiles could be fired "at Tel Aviv," thereby igniting panic in the Israeli capital,

where long

lines quickly

and the government rushed

in

formed

to pick

up gas masks

6 million doses of anthrax vaccine from

the United States. But the United States

itself did

not really appear to

take the threat of an Iraqi biological or chemical missile strike very seriously. In

dam s

fist

Kuwait, which would presumably have been high on Sad-

of possible targets, U.S. citizens were advised by their

embassies that there was no cause for alarm and certainly no need to

equip themselves with gas masks.

EN DGAM E

277

In the months between the invasion of Kuwait and the outbreak of

House had been haunted by the fear of would allow Saddam to extricate himself

the Gulf War, the Bush White a "diplomatic solution" that

from Kuwait without undue

of face. In those days, the United

loss

aided by the Iraqi leaders intransigence, had ruthlessly

States,

quashed any

aimed

initiatives

at

such a solution. But by February

The French, who

1998, the world had changed.

any case had been

in

had argued

busily negotiating business relationships with Iraq,

there was

Little

point in an inconclusive military action that would not

get rid of Saddam.

Annan

that

Now they suggested that UN secretary general Kofi

travel personally to Iraq to seek a

way out of the

crisis

over the

presidential sites.

Annan thought

UN

can't go,"

this

an excellent idea. Washington did not. "You

ambassador

Richardson told Annan.

Bill

"It will

box

us in." But even the British thought the secretary general should be

allowed to go to Baghdad. Clinton agreed with reluctance.

The the

secretary general's trip

first

was a breakthrough

for

Saddam. For

time since the war, a world statesman was coming to

addressing him respectfully and seeking a favor. speedily agreed to a

the presidential

The

visit,

Iraqi leader

compromise under which Unscom could inspect

sites,

but only

when accompanied by

team of diplomats who would monitor the

activities

a newly

formed

of the obstreper-

ous inspectors. Thus, rather than asserting the principle of free and unfettered access to any

site that

Unscom needed,

the agreement cre-

ated a new and cumbersome procedure for this special category of site.

None

of this mattered to Annan. After he had

Saddam's

cigars, the secretary general

and "very well informed and

described his host as "calm"

... in full control of the facts."

Since the crushing of the 1991 uprisings,

been seen

in public.

Now,

smoked one of

in

Saddam had

rarely

the fullness of his triumph, he

embarked on a program of public appearances. On March 17, for example, he visited al-Dhour, a small town in the Sunni heartland. This locality held a special significance in the

because

it

was here,

his abortive

in 1959, that

he had

Saddam Hussein

swum

story

the Tigris following

attempt to assassinate President Qassim.

He took phone

calls

from

who

received him with shouts of praise and dancing," according to

local citizens

and accepted the "greetings of the masses,

OUT OF THE ASHES

2VB

crowd slaughtered sheep

Iraqi TV. Afterward the

while the leader waved from the back of an open

and

in the air again

in celebration

car, firing his rifle

again.

Annan s visit had endowed Saddam with a legitimacy he had not enjoyed in years was not lost on the Repubhcan Party leadership in Washington. Denouncing the administration's weak acquiescence to Annans "appeasement," the Republicans in Congress looked for a means to discommode both Clinton and Saddam simulThe

fact that

taneously and found

in

it

none other than Ahmad Chalabi.

Ever since the CIA had withdrawn funding from the Congress

at the

Iraqi National

beginning of 1997, the opposition group had fallen on

hard times. Chalabi claimed to be supporting the opposition group out of his

own pocket,

to the tune of no less than $5 million a

INC London

the

The

month, but

headquarters had taken on a semi-deserted look.

once-bustling

INC

center at Salahudin in Kurdistan had been

abandoned since the massacre and headlong flight of September 1996. As an

active opposition

movement widiin

Iraq, the

INC was

defunct.

Nevertheless, to powerful senators like Trent Lott and Jesse

and

their advisers, including the formidable cold-war veteran Richard

Perle, the articulate Chalabi

Speaking

as

was a godsend.

an "elected representative" of the Iraqi people

based on a vote by the three hundred delegates

meeting

in Salahudin

committee that the

back

in

in

INC

some abuse

to the "warrior" Scott Ritter,

United States should deploy

mind was

at the inaugural

leveling

its

far larger

he proposed

The northern zone he

than the area controlled by the Kurds,

including the major cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and Iraq's northern fields.

The southern

at

forces to establish "military

exclusion zones" in northern and southern Iraq.

had

claim

INC was "confronting Saddam on the ground" and

CIA and paying tribute

that the

(a

October 1992), Chalabi told a Senate

had the support of "thousands of Iraqis." After the

Helms

area included Basra and the southern

The INC would take over the administration of these areas, die United States, and would eventually establish

itself as

oil

oil fields.

assisted

by

the provi-

sional

government of Iraq. The whole undertaking would be financed

either

from

Iraqi assets frozen in U.S.

banks since 1991 or by the sale

of oil from the southern zone. This ambitious scheme went

down

well with the Senate majority

EN DGAM E party.

279

A Democrat who had the bad taste

embezzlement charges lapse of the Petra

to bring

up the

issue of tlie

against Chalabi in Jordan following the col-

Bank

in

1989 was roundly abused by the former

banker's supporters, along with a suggestion that even the mention of this

event "had the earmarks of a plant from the White House or the

CIA." In the following months, support for the Iraqi opposition and Chalabi in particular blossomed in Congress, which voted $5 million to establish a "Radio

that

Free Iraq" along the

had been beamed

into Eastern

lines of the

Radio Free Europe

Europe during the cold

war.

Another $5 million was voted for the "Iraqi democratic opposition," with the proviso "that a significant portion of the support for the democratic opposition

should go to the Iraqi National Congress, a group

that has demonstrated the capacity to effectively challenge the Sad-

dam Hussein regime with representation from ish

Sunni, Shia, and Kurd-

elements of Iraq." Thus, while

many of its former

leading Iraqi

the Kurdish leaders Barzani and Talabani nization extinct, the

INC,

members

—including

—considered Chalabi

as a weapon in the

going from strength to strength on Capitol

s

orga-

RepubHcans' armory, was

Hill.

For the

the debate that preceded the Gulf War, Iraq had

first

time since

become

a partisan

issue in U.S. politics.

This being the case, the administration had to fight back. Officials briefed journalists on the

all

too evident weakness of the opposition,

word that the CIA was hard work on a whole new covert scheme of "sabotage and subversion" undermine Saddam. Kurdish and Shiite agents would be enlisted including the INC. Others leaked

destroy "key Iraqi pillars of economic and political power, like

at

to to

utility

Whoever was responsible for this "plan" had evidently forgotten Abu Amneh, the mercenary bomber and self-proclaimed veteran of the last CIA covert action against Saddam. Nor did the mooted scheme indicate much knowledge of con-

plants or broadcast stations."

temporary conditions inside

Iraq,

where the

utility plants

were

faifing

By the sumpower plants in Baghdad were regularly out of action for twelve hours and more a day. On a more practical level, the administration made efforts to

without the need of any outside intervention by the CIA.

mer of 1998,

the hottest in

reach out to

Saddam s enemy

fifty

years in Iraq, even the

to the east, Iran.

For

years, the "dual

OUT OF THE ASHES

2SD containment"

policy,

by which the Iranians were accorded equal

tus as pariahs with the Iraqis,

had precluded any

sta-

effective collabora-

between Tehran and Washington. But by 1998, the cold war between Washington and Tehran showed signs of winding down, tion

aided by appeals

Mohammed Accordingly,

better

for

from the

relations

May

1997.

the leader of the Iranian-

for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq,

to receive earnest appeals to visit Washington.

overtures, presumably with the in

cleric

Khatami, elected president of Iran in

Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim,

backed Supreme Council

be

liberal

Tehran.

The

Hakim

began

rejected these

encouragement of the powers

that

Iranian authorities were not about to help solve

Washington's Iraq problem without receiving something tangible in return, such as U.S. blessing for shipment of Central Asian oil across

Iranian territory.

At the same time, the State Department moved to rebuild old alliances.

Before August 1996, northern Iraq had been a "military

exclusion zone" denied to Iraqi forces. Ruminating on various possible

means of challenging Saddam, the to restore the status

State

Department now took

quo in Kurdistan. Accordingly,

1998,

Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani were

for a

peace meeting, lodging

at the

in early

invited to

Key Bridge

steps

September

Washington

Marriott Hotel. In

return for a firm guarantee of American military protection against

Saddam, the two leaders agreed

to swallow their

mutual enmity once

again and unite in a reformed Kurdish government, with elections to

foUow. Barzani agreed to share the tolls

and Talabani agreed

money from

that Arbil should

the border-crossing

be jointly controlled by the

two groups. As Barzani and his delegation came and went through the Marriott lobby during the negotiations, they were surveyed with vocal

enmity by Jaliwar al-Sourchi who, by coincidence, had booked himself into the

same

hotel while in Washington on a business

trip.

As he mut-

tered imprecations against his tribal enemies, the blood feuds of the distant

mountains of Kurdistan seemed suddenly very

Chalabi greeted the

initial

near.

news of the Kurdish agreement with

exultation. "Things are really moving,"

he said the day

after the

agreement was announced. But these high hopes were dashed when the Kurdish leaders

flatly

refused to have anything to do with him.

Even an imperious summons from the

office of

Senator Jesse Helms

EN DBAM E for the pair to

come

ZB

1

meeting with Chalabi could not sway

to a joint

them. The discussion with Helms s messenger became acrimonious, with ugly words such as "embezzler" being tossed about.

appear that the

To add

INC would be

to Chalabi

s

It

did not

returning to Salahudin anytime soon.

vexation, the

CIA

leaked word that the agency's

inspector general was investigating the agency's prior handling of

both the

INC and the Accord operations,

including the use of funds.

This did not sway Chalabi's partisans in Congress, however,

who by

October had passed the "Iraq Liberation Act," authorizing $97 million for the

where

arming and training of the Iraqi opposition. Precisely

this training

was

to take place

and who would be trained was

not specified.

Meanwhile, reviewing the recent

crises over

Unscom, U.S.

officials

concluded that the confrontations with Saddam had been a disaster. In late April, President Clinton secretly

there would be no

more attempts

at

decreed

that, for the

time being,

mihtary action to force the Iraqis

to allow access to presidential sites or

anywhere

else to the

Unscom

Even when tests on a missile warhead excavated from one where Iraq had secretly destroyed weapons in 1991 indicated that it had once contained VX, thus giving the lie to Iraqi denials that it had ever succeeded in "weaponizing" the lethal chemical, the administration showed little appetite for an immediate face-off. In Baghdad, Saddam was stepping up the level of his rhetoric by demanding a speedy conclusion of the Unscom mission and threatening grave but unspecified retaliation if sanctions were not lifted. Unscom was still going about its work, seeking elusive documents and inspectors.

of the

sites

other evidence of Iraqi perfidy.

On

August

5,

however, the Iraqi gov-

ernment announced that it was ending all cooperation with the inspectors,

thus ending their searches.

The White House,

true to the April

decision to swear off military confrontations over the issue,

had

little

reaction.

By now, Washington knew for certain that Saddam had been erately seeking a provocation.

An

delib-

electronic intelligence interception

of a conversation between Tariq Aziz and Russian foreign minister Pri-

makov revealed Aziz

angrily complaining that "the

Americans are not

reacting" to the action against the inspectors. If the fact that the recent intrusive searches

had been to the advantage of Saddam was now clear

OUT OF THE ASHES

ZBZ

Madeleine Albright, the point was

to high-level officials such as

vant to Scott Ritter.

with his work by high-level

complaining that "the

no arms control

at

irrele-

On August 27, he resigned, citing the interference

all.

illusion of "

Washington and London and

officials in

With

this

arms control

is

more dangerous than

and subsequent denunciations of the

administration s weakness in the face of Saddam s defiance, the articulate

ex-marine swiftly became as

much a hero as Ahmad Chalabi to the

Republicans, anxious as they were to malign Clinton administration

poHcy on

Iraq.

Ritter lost

no time

the threat from at least

magnitude and imminence of

in asserting the

Saddam s hidden

Saddam had

arsenal, declaring that

three nuclear weapons ready for use as soon as he laid his

hands on the necessary This was too

material (uranium 235 or plutonium).

fissile

much for many of his former colleagues on the inspection

teams. Gary Dillon, leader of the "action team" deployed by the International

Atomic Energy Agency

(tlie

IAEA)

to

work on the

nuclear aspects of Iraq's weapons programs, asked Ritter

specifically

how he had

"From a nordiem European The response from the nuclear

learned of these three nuclear devices. intelligence source," replied Ritter.

experts was laughter.

"For little

United States pushes the

political reasons, tlie

IAEA

discrepancies in Iraq's nuclear accounting so that the

kept open, explains one '

official closely

short of lobotomizing or killing

nuclear program facilities

and

is

finished.

We

wound on

can be

involved in the operation, "but

the Iraqi nuclear scientists, the Iraqi

have closed down

all

their nuclear

as the

ful relationship

Unscom

martyr, Ritter

now inflicted

the organization. In an interview with the Israeli

newspaper Haaretz, he spoke

in glowing

terms of his close and

fruit-

with Israeli intelligence, as well as detailing such hith-

erto closely held itor Iraqi

to find

activities."

Having achieved fame another

all

file

Unscom

secrets as the organization's ability to

communications.

On

the

same day

his

mon-

Haaretz interview

appeared, the Washington Post reported that Ritter, with his superiors'

approval,

had been

Unscom's U-2 spy plane

in the habit of bringing film taken

to Israel for processing

and

analysis.

few months before, the United States had been seeking to support in asserting Unscom's right to inspect

at will.

by

Only a

rally

Arab

Given

this

ENDGAME admission of collusion with

Israel,

prospect of any Arab support for

As they maneuvered, both

November

1,

Saddam upped

2B3

however well intentioned, the

Unscom were

sides

clearly fading away.

were using Unscom

the ante by suspending

as a tool.

On

cooperation

all

with Unscom's long-term monitoring program, meaning that the inspectors could no longer check to ensure that sites already visited

were not being used famihar pattern. that they forth

work on weapons. Events now followed a States and Great Britain announced bomb Iraq. Statements of defiance poured

for

The United

were ready

to

from Baghdad. At the very

actually in the air

on

their

way

last

minute, with U.S. warplanes

to attack Iraq, the Iraqi

offered to resume "full co-operation" with Unscom.

government

The bombers

returned to their bases, but only for a brief period.

The Clinton Administration and Saddam Hussein,

appeared,

it

were both intent on fomenting the much postponed bombing attack.

Richard Butler's inspectors returned to Baghdad and went

about their searches. Most of these passed off without incident, but

some occasions provided just enough non-cooperation to justify Butlers subsequent report that Saddam had once again failed to live up to his commitments. Reliable reports at the time suggested that Butler had composed his report in close consultation with Washington. Indeed the vociferous Scott Ritter went on record the Iraqis on

with the claim that the inspections had been a "set-up," designed to "generate a conflict that would justify a bombing."

Saddam

part, in insisting that Butler stick to the letter of the

negotiated by Rolf Ekeus in June 1996 and send no inspectors to sensitive sites such as

appears to have been no

less

for his

agreement

more than four

Baath Party headquarters,

eager to have the

bombs

fall.

In Washington, of course, everything was overshadowed by the

ongoing impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.

he duly ordered the long heralded bombing his

strike

When

on December

16,

Republican opponents reacted with angry suspicion, claiming with

some

justice that the attack

had been timed

to serve as a distraction

from the presidents problems at home. However, apart from the postponement of the House of Representatives' debate on impeachment by one day, the attack on Iraq was of little political benefit to the commander in chief

OUT OF THE ASHES

ZB4-

The bombing elicited furious protests from France, and Egypt, while angry crowds demonstrated behalf of the Iraqi people. Palestinians set

in the

fire to

Russia, China,

Arab world on

the American flags

they had been given to wave in honor of President Clinton's

Gaza only a few days before. Nor was the

Saddam

attack effective in

visit to

humbling

or ehminating his alleged arsenal of weapons of mass

destruction. Ninety seven targets overall

were attacked, of which only

nine were reported by the Pentagon as fully destroyed.

Of

eleven

chemical and biological weapons production facilities targeted, none were destroyed. The Special Repubhcan Guards and other bastions of the regime associated with weapons concealment were similarly slated for destruction, but their peacetime barracks results in

even assuming they had not evacuated

and

they did in January 1991, the

offices as

terms of facilities destroyed appear to have been meager.

The Pentagon expressed most

surprise at the lack of antiaircraft

were the massed ranks of

fire,

but

Iraq's

sion

news cameras from around the world on the roof of the interna-

effective defenses

tional press center in

Baghdad. Under such

States could not risk high-profile "collateral

attack

on the Amariya shelter

women and

that

televi-

scrutiny, the

United

damage" such

as the

had incinerated four hundred

children eight years before. In

Baghdad

itself,

people

greeted the renewed offensive with weary resignation. "Iraqis," as

one of them remarked, "fear that a game

is

being played over which

they have no interest. They feel they are always the victims, whether it is

sanctions or bombs."

wailed

at nightfall,

The

streets

emptied

as the air-raid sirens

but wedding parties continued

at the al-Rashid

hotel and the Iraqi dinar in contrast to previous crises, retained

its

value against the dollar. "Operation Desert Fox," repeatedly threat-

ened and postponed

for

more than

a year,

had turned out be only a

shabby and diminished echo of the storm unleashed on Iraq

in the

distant days of January 1991.

man who had defied Saddam's nuclear weapon so many years before, was living in

Dr. Hussain al-Shahristani, the

orders to build a

Tehran. His dedicated work on behalf of Iraqi refugees

with considerable moral authority

among

endowed him

the Iraqi Shia and a wide

range of contacts inside Iraq, especially in the south.

Two days into the

bombing he wrote one of the present authors an urgent message. "A

ENDGAME

2B5

number of people have contacted us from inside asked

Iraq,"

he wrote, "and

the Americans are really going to continue this [bombing]

if

campaign

to

weaken Saddam

free themselves

rise

up and

from the regime. The memory of betrayal during the people s minds, and they do not want to repeat

last intifada is vivid in

that tragic experience." attitude clear

where people can

to a point

by closing

The its

Iranian government

had made

its

own

border with Iraq in order to prevent any

assistance to a potential uprising.

Following seventy hours of bombing. President Clinton gave

He

Shahristani and his people their answer.

confident

we have

Saddam Hussein

achieved our mission"

also

"I

al-

am

called off the attacks.

pronounced himself the winner. "God rewarded

you," the Iraqi leader told his subjects in a cast across the

declared victory

—and

—

TV address that was broad-

Arab world, "and delighted your hearts with the crown

of victory." Iraqi spokesmen insisted that there would be no further

cooperation with Unscom, while in Washington, President Clinton

promised tions in

to "sustain

what have been among the most intensive sanc-

UN history." It was an ominous prospect.

Amid

the furor over Scott Ritter s resignation in the

1998, another resignation passed with day, the Irish

little

Quaker who had been sent

attention.

to

Baghdad

summer

of

Denis Hallito supervise

the oil-for-food arrangement under which revenues from exports of Iraqi oil

were entrusted

to the custody of the

United Nations to buy

food and other humanitarian supplies, was leaving Baghdad in gust.

As he

left,

he directed a

bitter blast at the

dis-

poHcy that caused

"four thousand to five thousand children to die unnecessarily every

month due

to the impact of sanctions because of the

water and sanitation, inadequate

diet,

breakdown of

and the bad internal health

situation."

In her

March 1997 speech

inite continuation

at

Georgetown announcing the indef-

of sanctions. Secretary of State Albright had

described the oil-for-food deal just then coming into effect as being

"designed to ease the suffering of civilians throughout Iraq." As

happened, the month

after she spoke,

little

so

UNICEF conducted a survey

of some fifteen thousand children under

showed

it

five across Iraq.

The

results

difference between the cities and the countryside. Just

under a quarter of the children were underweight

for their age.

OUT OF THE ASHES

ZS6 more than

Slightly

one

in ten

for-food

were chronically malnourished. Almost

was acutely malnourished. In March 1998,

program had been

had been survey.

a quarter

after the oil-

in effect for twelve

months and indeed

UNICEF

did another similar

vastly increased in value,

The percentage of underweight

a statistically insignificant margin.

down by Those with chronic malnutrition children had gone

had declined by eight tenths of a percentage

point, while the acutely

malnourished infants and toddlers had actually increased by a tiny fraction.

Commenting on

these chilling

the authors of the

statistics,

report noted in bold type that "It would appear that the 'oil-for-food'

program has not yet made

a measurable difference to the

young

children of Iraq."

For

hungry and dying children

Halliday, the

in a land

where

overeating had been the major prewar pediatric problem were only

the most obvious effect of the United Nations blockade. Sanctions, he said,

were

biting into the fabric of society in less visible but almost

equally devastating ways.

They had,

for example, increased the

num-

ber of divorces (up to 3 million Iraqi professionals had emigrated, leaving their

womenfolk behind

to

head the household) and reduced the

number of marriages because young people could not afford to

marry.

Crime had increased. An entire generation of young people had grown up in isolation from the outside world. He compared them, ominously, to the orphans of the fanatical Taliban

what

tliey

Afghan war who had spawned the cruel and

movement. These young

Iraqis

were

intolerant of

considered to be their leaders' excessive moderation. "What

should be of concern

is

die possibility of more fundamentalist Islamic

thinking developing," concluded HaUiday. "It a possible spin-off of the sanctions regime.

is

not well understood as

We are pushing people to

take extreme positions."

Following the suppression of the great insurgencies of 1991, Sad-

dam Hussein had announced

his intention of sitting

back and wait-

ing to take advantage of his enemies' mistakes. In the ensuing years,

those mistakes had been plentiful.

Saddam himself had survived make the Iraqi peo-

unscathed. But the biggest mistake of all was to ple pay the price of besieging Saddam.

One

day, the bill will

come

due.

Postscript

The United States fought the Gulf War to prevent change. dam

Hussein, for so long a useful regional

natural order of things

ally,

by invading Kuwait on August

thereby threatening Western control of Middle Eastern

And

armies, fleets, and

so,

—

back

to

resume its

August

its

1,

former

1990.

bombers were sent

Once

this

still

Iraq, so

2,

1990,

reserves.

to turn the clock

by the

conflict

and shorn of

united and potent enough to

continue countering revolutionary Iran.

ment of

oil

was accomplished, Iraq would

role, albeit crippled

most dangerous weapons, but

Sad-

had upset the

Any changes

in the govern-

Washington hoped, would be confined

to the

smooth removal of Saddam himself by means of a military coup. Pending a turnover of leadership, Saddam would be contained, administration officials liked to

were

to

be locked

say, "in his

in with him, out of sight

box."

The

as

Iraqi people

and out of mind,

for the

duration of his rule.

But the clock could not be turned back. Whatever the hopes of the victors, the war had brought inevitable and irreversible changes.

Western public opinion, suddenly educated strous aspects of Saddam's regime,

as to the

more mon-

would no longer permit the brutal

repression of the Kurdish minority, thereby forcing the United States to sponsor a

The

semiautonomous Kurdish

Iraqi opposition could

Washington and other alhed

statelet in

northern Iraq.

no longer be spumed and derided

capitals as before.

in

They were therefore

OUT OF THE ASHES

2SS

recruited as supporting players in the CIA's covert program to organize a coup.

Weak inside

Iraq

itself,

the exiled opposition groups yet

served as an increasingly vocal and embarrassing reminder that

American policy toward Iraq was having the

effect of preserving the

status quo.

Most important, Saddam himself

consistently refused to play his

assigned role. Altliough weakened by war and rebellions, he did not victim to a putsch

fall

showed great

skill

by

his Baathist peers.

in manipulating divisions

and Kurdish communities

in Iraq to his

The resourceful dictator among the Sunni, Shia,

own advantage. At his moment

of greatest danger in March 1991, the Sunni officer corps in Baghdad

demonstrated that they preferred Saddam to the rebels tured northern and southern Iraq.

who had cap-

Nor was Saddam prepared

to

acquiesce in the decision to destroy his strategic nuclear, chemical,

and

biological

retreated only

weapons programs. Resisting with

when

tary action, as in the

so,

cunning, he

faced with the real direat of renewed allied mili-

summer of 1991,

the defection of Hussein

Even

artful

Saddam

or betrayal from inside, as with

Kamel four years

later.

stayed on the defensive until 1996.

Then he

sent his tanks into the Kurdish capital of Arbil and proved to his satisfaction that the

that

United States was unwilling to intervene. From

moment on he felt free to provoke repeated confrontations with December 1998, the United States finally carried

his enemies. In

out

its

oft-repeated threat and launched a heavy military strike.

After four hundred cruise missiles had hit Iraq,

from the smoke and ashes with

power apparently undiminished. United States has been quite wound. The enforcement of economic sanctions has been

Unable to willing to

Saddam emerged

his

strike effectively, the

the only instrument of policy toward Iraq pursued with consistency this weapon was deemed a "demonstrable success" in keeping Saddam weak, the real wounded were to be found among the Iraqi people. By 1998, four to five thousand children were dying every month because of sanctions. Alarmed that Saddam was turning the suffering of his people to his own propaganda advantage, the United States encouraged the introduction of the oil-for-food program. But by December 1998,

and vigor by successive U.S. administrations. While

after this

program had been

in operation for almost

two

years, half

pasTSCRiPT of all Iraqi children were

still

zsg

malnourished. 'More food was arriving,

but widespread lack of clean water, a functioning sewage system, or electricity

Despite

meant

had returned

that Iraq

this exercise in

what Pope John-Paul

cal warfare" against the Iraqi people, the

weakened the regime s

grip

has called "biologi-

II

economic blockade has not

on power. ReUance on the

has, if anything, strengthened the

have proved ineffective

to a preindustrial age.

in forcing

governments

official ration

control. Sanctions

Saddam Hussein

to

comply with

United Nations resolutions and led to a tragedy of which the West-

em

world

is

largely unaware.

No one

died as a result of sanctions so ies

far,

put the number of casualties

half a million. This

is

far

really

among

children alone at well over

higher than the death

War and indeed approaches the benchmark set in Rwanda and Cambodia. Arguments against

knows how many have

but reputable international bod-

toll

from the Gulf

modern

for

sanctions, of course, leave

holocausts

open the problem

man against whom they are ostensibly aimed. The question "What do we do about Saddam?" is posed with increasing desperation during each new crisis between Iraq and the United States. Those who ask it usually want to be told that there is a simple formula for getting rid of the Iraqi leader. There are many who are willing to claim that, given enough willpower in Washingof the continued rule of the

ton, his departure

coup or

would not be so

guerrilla warfare.

alhes passed

up

But

lowed by a ground its

in practice the

arrange by military

United States and

its

Saddam Hussein in armies stopped on the borders of Iraq. Nobody

their

chance of getting

1991 when their now shows any enthusiasm

lend

difficult to

assault

for a

rid of

renewed U.S.

—even

if

military buildup fol-

Saudi Arabia was prepared to

support for such a venture.

The more realistic question that should be asked is not how to Saddam but how to limit his ability to do harm. This has been the justification for Unscom and its weapons inspectors. They prevented Saddam Hussein from rebuilding his nuclear, chemical, get rid of

and biological weapons programs (beyond the embryonic which they may presently bors.

exist)

and using them against

state in

his neigh-

But the main victims of Saddam Hussein have always been

ordinary people.

It is

they

who have

suffered through two wars.

OUT ar THE ASHES

290 They have seen

their country destroyed. Ironically,

it is

they

who

are

the primary target of sanctions.

Any visitor to Iraq knows that Iraqis blame sanctions and those who enforce them for much of their present misery. It is no less clear that bitterness

dam's downfall will

and hatred of

come

at

the hands of his

dent of outside intervention aware.

He knows

in

fact of

own

people, indepen-

which he himself

is

well

and hatred of the masses who

for a

his portraits

March 1991 has not gone

reckoning.

—a

that the rage

few delirious days defaced

their ruler also runs deep. Sad-

and lynched

his

henchmen

away. Sooner or later there will be a

Notes Chapter

1

Saddam at the Abyss

:

page 5 Statements: Foreign Broadcast Information

NES) 91

Survey (FBIS,

page 7 Informed opinion: see Colin Powell, York:

Random House,

page 7 "What

Near East

My American Journey, (New

1995), p. 461.

politics?":

is

Service,

043, p. 33.

Interview vidth Dr. Hussain al-Shahristani,

Tehran, 4/10/98.

page 7

"I

consider myself to have died then": Interview with Abdel Karim

Kabariti,

Amman,

3/9/98.

page 7 Invasion decision from God: Guardian, London, 6/10/91. page 8 Tariq

Aziz:

Interview by

Amman, February page 8

Khairallah:

Andrew Cockbum with Zeid

Wafiq al-Samarrai, however, thinks that

uinely an accident, recalling that the weather was bad to tear the roof off his headquarters. Interview,

page 8 "Only two Dossier:

Rifai,

1992.

divisional

commanders":

it

was gen-

enough

that day

London, 3/10/98.

Pierre

Salinger,

Secret

The Hidden Agenda Behind the Gulf War (London: Penguin

Books, 1991),

p. 15.

make

page 8

"if I

page 9

"stay motionless":

a peace proposal": Ibid., p. 187.

Faleh Jabber,

in

Iraq Since the Gulf War,

Prospects for Democracy, Fran Hazelton, editor (London:

ZED

Books,

1994), p. 104.

page 9 "Las Vegas": Michael Gordon and Bernard E. als'

War (New York: Back Bay Books,

Trainor,

The Gener-

1995), p. 215.

page 9 Racetrack: Patrick Cockbum, Independent, London,

1/17/91.

NOTES

ZgZ page 10

"Our main hobby": Interview

page 10

fear of nuclear strike: This point

by several

Iraqis in late January.

was no

unlikely to happen, there

page 10

Baghdad, 1/16/91.

in

was made

By the time

to Patrick

Cockbum

was clear that

it

this

was

fuel for the refugees to return.

elephants: Personal observation, Patrick

Cockbum, Baghdad,

2/17/91.

page 10

Saddam with

page 10

"We knew

the troops: Patrick

all

Cockbum, Baghdad,

1/16/91.

about these weapons": Interview with Brigadier

Mi, London, 3/13/98.

page 11

"their ancient reputation for savagery

Mesopotamia 1914-1917,

Loyalties:

.

.

.":

Sir

Arnold Wilson:

Vol. 1, (Oxford: University Press,

1930), p. 136.

page 13

Captain Shirwan: Interview, Salahudin, Kurdistan, June 1991.

page 13

mer

United States avoided researching senior

"We

page 13 rai,

CIA

No

casualties: Interview with for-

Washington, 2/8/98.

didn't lose a single officer": Interview with

London,

page 13

official,

Wafiq al-Samar-

6/2/98.

casualties

from Tulaiha: Interview with Hassan Hamzi,

Tulaiha, July 1991.

"We were

page 15

anxious to withdraw": Faleh Jabber in

Why the Intifada

Fran Hazelton, editor (London: Zed Books, 1993),

Failed,

page 16

The

page 19

Outbreak of Kurdish

hotels: Patrick

Cockbum,

intifada:

Knowledge, What Forgiveness?: York: Farrar, Straus

& Giroux,

Jonathan Randal, After Such

Encounters with Kurdistan (New

1997), pp. 40-41.

page 19

"Haji Bush," Ibid., p. 45.

page 20

Hillah: Interview with

page 20

"At

Silence

My

p. 107.

interviews in Baghdad, 4/22/91.

Hussain al-Shahristani, Tehran, 4/10/98.

first we were a httle crazy": Kanan (New York: Norton, 1993), p. 73.

Maldya, Cruelty and

WW

page 21

Fatwa and bodies:

page 21

"Nobody knew what was going

ibid.,

pp. 74-75. on": Interview with Sayid Majid

al-Khoie, London, 6/2/98.

page 21

Jabber, op.

page 22

"They swear by the Koran": Interview with Saad

cit.,

pp. 108-109. Jabr,

London,

3/12/98.

page 22

Iranian behavior: Interview with Hussain al-Shahristani, Tehran,

3/10/98.

page 25

Intercepted message: Interview with Wafiq al-Samarrai, Lon-

don, 3/10/98.

NOTES

"one thousand dead in Basra": Inteiview and personal observa-

page 25 tion

293

by Patrick Cockbum

in Basra, 4/22/91.

Scenes in Kerbala and Najaf:

page 26

Cockbum,

Visit to

Kerbala and Najaf, Patrick

4/15/91. Interview with General

Rahman

governor of Kerbala, and Abdul

Abdul Khaliq Abdul

Aziz,

al-Dhouri, governor of Najaf.

Both

men emphasized Iranian involvement, showing some ammunition

and a

TNT charge that they said were of Iranian origin.

page 26

Al-Khoie meeting with Saddam, and Mohammed's interrogation:

Interview with Sayid Majid al-Khoie, London, 6/2/98.

Mohammed Taqi

recounted these events to his brother, Sayid Majid, before he was killed in

what

his family

is

convinced was a government-arranged car accident

between Najaf and Kerbala on July 21, 1994. page 27 Al-Khoie presented by the government; Observed by Patrick

Cockbum, Baghdad, 4/15/91. page 27 The place can be identified because

at

one point the

film

shows a

road sign saying "Rumaytha."

page 28 Zibari,

page 28

"Only when you Kurds took Kirkuk": Interview wdth Hoshyar

London,

6/3/98.

Thousands of Kurdish volunteers: Interview with Massoud

Barzani, Salahudin,

page 29

May

1991.

Bullets: Interview with

Cockbum, London,

Wafiq al-Sammari by Andrew and Patrick

3/10/98.

page 29 "mistakes": Interview with Saad al-Bazzaz, former editor of

al-

Jumaniya, by Patrick Cockbum, London, 3/16/98.

Chapter page 31

2:

"We

"We Have Saddam Hussein Still Here"

didn't

have a

"Unfinished Business:

page 32 Naval

ABC

News, Peter Jennings Reporting,

The CIA and Saddam Hussein,"

June 1993, "Pushing

Them

USAF

out the Back Door," United States

Institute Proceedings.

advance on Baghdad: Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor,

The Generals' War (New York: Back Bay Books, 1995),

page 33

6/26/97.

Escape of Republican Guard: Colonel James G. Burton,

(retired),

page 33

single":

"The White House was

terrified":

p.

452.

Interview with Ambassador

Charles Freeman, Washington, 3/31/98.

page 33

"no poUtical overtones": Telephone discussion with James Aldus,

5/28/98.

NOTES

ZS A Saddam

page 34

top of target

at

Untold Story of the Persian Gulf

list:

Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The

War (New

York:

Houghton

Mifflin,

1993), p. 272.

page 34

"focus of our efforts": Washington Post, 9/16/90.

page 34

"We

do

don't

assassinations":

ing, "Unfinished Business:

ABC

News, Peter Jennings Report-

The CIA and Saddam Hussein,"

6/26/97.

page 36

Agent report on

page 36

Schultz forbids contacts: Senate Foreign Relations Committee

report, "Civil

War

shelter: Atkinson, op.

cit.,

in Iraq," (Washington, D.C.:

p. 276.

Government

Printing

Office), 5/1/91.

page 36

"stupid stuff:

Interview with Peter Galbraith; Washington,

D.C.; 5/30/98.

page 37

"get rid of Saddam": Senate Foreign Relations Committee, op.

page 38

"I

did have a strong feeling":

Gordon and Trainor,

op.

cit.,

cit.

p. 517.

(Authors' emphasis in quotation.)

page 39

"the Iranian occupation": Ibid., p. 516.

page 39

CIA gives

arms:

named; interviewed

in

Former American diplomat who asked not

to

be

Washington, D.C., 5/29/98.

page 40

"never our goal": Gordon and Trainor, op.

page 40

"flimsy construction":

cit.,

p. 517.

Interview with Ambassador Freeman,

3/31/98.

Mary McGrory, Washington

President compared to Lincoln:

page 40

Post, 3/26/91.

page 40

White House meeting: Washington

page 41

"Saddam

will crush":

page 41

"Not that

I

at

Washington

Post, 3/27/91.

Post, 3/29/91.

know of: Question and answer

session with reporters

Bethesda Ward Hospital, Maryland, 3/27/91. Transcription from the

public papers of George Bush, www.csdl.

"Why

page 41

TAMU.edu/BushLib/

are you so worried about the Shia": Interview with Sayid

Majid al-Khoie, London, 6/2/98.

page 42

"Do

page 43

Pickering, Gates: Los Angeles Times, "U.S. Sanctions Threat

Takes

I

think": presidential press conference, 4/16/91.

UN by Surprise," 5/9/91, p. AlO.

page 50

"smart but not wise": Interview with Abdul Karim al-Kabariti,

3/9/98.

page 52

Fadlallah a follower of al-Khoie: Olivier Roy, The Failure of

Political Islam

(London: Penguin, 1995),

p. 57.

N

Chapter

3:

OTES

29 5

The Origins of Saddam Hussein

A week to travel to Basra: Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

page 58

University Press, 1978), p. 16

page 59

thirteen days to Basra:

Norman

F.

Dixon,

On

the Psychology of

Military Incompetence (London: Jonathan Cape, 1976), p. 103.

page 59

Rebellion in Najaf: Batatu, op.

page 61

"To

page 62

British defeat at Kut:

depend on the

19.

cit., p.

tribe": Ibid., p. 21.

David Fromkin,

A

Peace to

End All

Peace

(London: Andre Deutsch, 1989), pp. 200-203. page 62 British cemetery in Kut now a swamp: Personal observation by Patrick

page 63

Cockbum,

April 1998.

"the antithesis of democratic government": H.V.F. Winstone,

Gertrude Bell (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978), pp. 215-216. page 63 three quarters of the population were tribal: Fromkin, op. pp.

cit.,

449^50.

page 63

"a flabby serpent": Batatu, op.

page 63

"The bottom seems

cit.,

p. 14.

dropped

to have

out":

General Aylmer Hal-

dane, The Insurrection in Mesopotamia (Cambridge: Allborough Publishing, 1992), p. 37.

page 63

"Since you took Baghdad": Winstone, op.

page 64

63,000

rifles:

Oxford University Press, 1992),

page 64

"The bottom seems

Gertrude

p. 222.

p. 195.

to have

dropped

out": Selected Letters

edited by Lady BeU, (London: Ernest Bell, 1927), Vol.

Bell,

489. She was writing

page 64

cit.,

Elie Kedourie, Politics in the Middle East (Oxford:

"The Arab

is

on June

14, less

than three weeks before the uprising.

most treacherous": Haldane, op.

page 64

Shia-Sunni unity: Batatu, op.

page 65

"They now know what

real

of

II, p.

cit.,

cit.,

p. 36.

p. 23.

bombing means": David McDowall,

A Modem History of the Kurds (London: B. Tauris, 1997), "I am very doubtful": Haldane, op. cit., p. xiii.

p. 180.

page 65

Lawrence and poison

page 65

T.

page 66

"There

page 67

Death of royal

page 67

"Iraq today": Said K. Aburish,

E.

and the Arab page 67

is still":

Elite

Iraqi poets

Batatu, op.

gas: Ibid., p. vi. cit.,

family: Ibid., op.

pp. 25-26. cit.,

A

p. 801.

Brutal Friendship: The West

(London: Victor GoUancz, 1997),

winning

don, 6/24/98. Poets

prizes: Interview with

who wrote

that the

advantage qualified for larger prizes.

p. 135.

Faleh Jabber, Lon-

comparison was to Saddam's

NOTES

296 page 69

"To

Gavin Young, Iraq: Land of Two Rivers

talk like a Tikriti":

(London: Collins, 1980),

p.

98

"One of my uncles": Fuad M attar, Saddam Hussein: The Man Cause and the Future (London: Third World Center, 1981), p. 228

page 69 the

page 70

safer in prison than

page 70

Escape from

page 70

"They gave him a

page 71

"My headmaster

jail:

on the

streets: Ibid., pp.

31-32

46

Ibid., p.

pistol": Ibid., p. 31.

told me": Interview with Dr.

Hakim, "The Mind of Saddam Hussein,"

WGBH,

Abdul Wahad

al-

Frontline, Boston,

2/26/91.

page 71

Saddam pays blood money: Interview with Faleh

Jabar,

London,

6/25/98.

page 71

"A Baathi would have looked

page 72

"a very superficial wound": Interview with Dr. Tahsin Muallah,

WGBH, Frontline, was

cit.,

p. 1014.

Boston, 2/26/91.

page 73

"It

page 73

Saddams

page 73

"We helped him

like

in vain": Batatu, op.

you see

in the movies":

escape: Mattar, op.

cit.,

Independent, 3/31/98.

pp.

33^3.

go": Interview with

Abdel Majid Farid, Lon-

don, 6/2/98.

page 74

Saddam and

page 74

"A great

the bar in Cairo:

New

victory": Interview with

York Times, 10/24/90.

James

Critchfield; Washington,

D.C.; 4/10/91.

page 74

"CIA

page 75

Qassim's body: Kedourie, op.

page 75

"military aristocracy": Interview with Faleh Jabber, 6/24/98.

page 76

"exactly as

train":

Aburish, op.

we used

to

cit. cit.,

run

p. 320.

Tikrit":

Interview with

Kamran

Karadaghi, Iraqi journalist, London, 1997.

page 76

Saddams

health and taste for Portuguese rose: Interview with

Wafiq al-Samarrai, London, 3/10/98.

page 76

"He

page 78

Trial

will

go back": Interview with Kamran Karadaghi, 6/6/98.

of "conspirators":

WGBH, Frontline,

Transcript

of videotape

shown on

Boston, 2/26/91.

page 78

Body returned

page 80

"that

in a truck: Iraqi source,

mummy":

Mattar, op.

page 80

DIA

report: Independent,

page 81

CIA

aid to

cit.,

name withheld by request.

pp. 130-135.

London, 12/12/92

Saddam: Interview with Wafiq al-Samarrai, London,

3/10/98.

page 82

"War

doesn't

mean

just tanks": Pierre Salinger, Secret Dossier:

The Hidden Agenda Behind the Gulf War (London: Penguin Books, 1991) p. 31.

page 82 Iraq's

Iraq's

debt in 1990: Barry Rubin a«d Amatzia Baram, editors,

Road to War (New York:

page 83

297

OTES

N

St.

Martins Press, 1993), pp. 70-83.

"The ground bursts open": Samir

al-JChalil,

The Monument:

Art,

page 83

and Responsibility in Iraq (London: Andre Deutsch, 1991) p. 2. "We agreed with the American side": Salinger, op. cit., pp. 239-41.

page 83

"You are a force for moderation":

page 84

"When

Vulgarity,

Karim

Amman,

page 84

"bum

page 84

"The Saudis want

page 85 Aziz,"

Chapter page 89

New

to

Rubin and Baram,

weaken

original plan:

op.

cit.,

p. 12.

us": Salinger, op. cit., p. 65.

Milton Viorst, "Interview with Tariq

Yorker, 6/24/91.

Saddam Fights for Hrs Long Arm

4:

Experiences

of

Andrew Cockbum with page 90

3/9/98.

half your house":

Saddams The

Amman": Interview with Abdul

the king got back to

al-Kabariti,

Ibid., p. 65.

Dr.

Hussain

al-Shahristani:

Interviews

by

Dr. al-Shahristani, Tehran, 4/10/98, 4/16/98.

Information on the nuclear program: "The Implementation of

United Nations Security Council Resolutions Relating to Iraq." Report

by the Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference, August 12, 1996.

page 92

Gas attack on Tehran: Interview with Wafiq al-Samarrai, Lon-

don, 3/13/98.

page 93

"the United States will not tolerate": Statement by Press Secre-

tary Fitzwater

on President Bush's

letter to President

Saddam Hussein

of Iraq, released by the White House, 1/12/91.

page 93 Leslie

page 94

Boomer's revelation: Interview with General Walter Boomer by

Cockbum, Saudi "which

Arabia, 9/90.

shall carry out": Security

Council Resolution 687, para-

graph 9(b)(1).

page 96

"Temporary measure": Interview with Wafiq al-Samarrai, Lon-

don, 3/12/98.

page 98

"I

thought

it

should be over quickly": Interview with Ambas-

sador Rolf Ekeus; Washington, D.C.; 2/9/98.

page 98

"We were very, very skeptical Ekeus open-minded approach": CIA official; Washington, D.C.; 2/6/98. .

.

.

's

Interview with former senior

page 102 Meeting with Tariq Aziz and Hussein Kamel: Interview with Rolf Ekeus, 2/9/98.

page 102 High-level committee: Presentation by Ambassador Richard

Buder

to the

UN

Security Council, 6/3/98.

NOTES

293 page 103 Digging up garden: page 105 CIA

on Saddam s plan

official

with former senior

Ibid.

CIA

official;

weapons program: Interview

for

Washington, D.C.; 2/16/98.

page 106 Group with placards: Independent, London, 9/26/98. page 110

".

.

the Commission

.

is

approaching": Report to the Security

Council, S/1994/138, 10/7/94.

page 111 Rockville, Maryland: Washington

Post, 11/21/97.

page 112 Spertzel, growth media, Aziz explanation: Interview with Rolf Ekeus; Washington, D.C.; 6/16/98.

Chapter page 114

5: "iRAqiis

No

Will Pay the Price"

food in the garbage: Observation by Patrick Cockbum,

7/25/91.

page 115 World Bank equates Iraq with Greece: Anthony Cordesman and

Ahmed

Hashim, Iraq: Sanctions and Beyond (Boulder, CO:

S.

Westview, 1997),

page 115

p. 127.

Iraqi chicken: Interview with

Services,

Doug

Broderick, Catholic ReHef

Baghdad, 9/7/91.

page 115 Oil revenues: Peter Boone, Haris Gazdar, and Athar Hussein, "Sanctions Against Iraq:

Economic and

The Costs of Failure" (New November 1997), p. 8.

page 115 2000 percent food price Survey, volume

page

1

15

page

1

16 Scene

York: Center for

Social Rights,

increase:

XV (Boulder, CO:

Middle East Contemporary

Westview, 1991),

Selling rags as clothes: Personal observation at

p. 437.

by authors, July 1991.

church and aid worker comment: Personal observation

by authors and interview with Doug Broderick of Catholic Relief Services,

Baghdad, July 1991.

page 120 Nuha

al-Radi:

Nuha

al-Radi,

Baghdad Diaries (London: Saqi

Books, 1998), pp. 59-60.

page 122 Blunt

scissors:

"Unsanctioned Suffering:

ment of United Nations Sanctions on nomic and

Social Rights,

page 122 600 percent

page 123

Ahtisaari:

inflation:

Human

Rights Assess-

(New York: Center

for

Eco-

1996).

Independent, London, 4/22/91.

"Report of the United Nations Mission to Assess

Humanitarian Needs saari,

May

Iraq"

in Iraq,"

March 10-16,

1991, led by Martti Ahti-

Undersecretary General for Administration and Management,

excerpts in Middle East Report,

May-June 1991,

page 123 Aga Khan: Independent, London, 7/20/91.

p. 12.

DTES

N

299

page 123 Rations provide 53 percent of basioneeds: "Unsanctioned Suffering," op.

cit.,

p. 986.

page 123 "The system page 124

Kroll:

page 125 Episode

dam s

is

highly equitable": Ibid., p. 18.

Los Angeles Times, 3/23/91, in

Amman

office: Leslie

p.

A-12.

and Andrew Cockbum, "Sad-

Best Ally," Vanity Fair, August 1992.

page 125 Forty-two merchants executed: Cordesman and Hashim, op. cit.,

p. 141.

page 125 "because of the lack of machinery": Interview by Patrick Cock-

bum v^th

Khalid Abdul

page 125 40 percent

Munam

Rashid, 10/17/95.

in agriculture:

Boone, Gazdar, and Hussein, op.

cit.,

p. 25.

page 126 Price of grain:

Ibid., pp.

17-18.

page 128 Amputations: Middle East Contemporary Survey, op.

cit.,

pp.

337-339.

page 129 Blank check: Leslie and Andrew Cockbum, op.

cit.

page 132 Sewage system: Information supplied by Abdullah Mutawi of the Center for

Economic and

both the Harvard and

Social Rights,

CESR trips in

New

York,

who was on

1991 and 1996.

page 132 Deaths from drinking contaminated water: Interview with Dr.

Nada al-Ward,

WHO,

Baghdad, 6/20/98.

page 132 "quarter of the children are suffering from malnutrition": Independent, London, 10/14/85.

page 132 Baghdad study of children: The Lancet, 346, 12/2/95. The study was done by Sarah Zandi and Mary Sith Fawzi on August 23-28, 1995. page 135 "semi-starvation tion in Iraq Since the

diet":

"The Health Conditions of the Popula-

Gulf Crisis" (Geneva:

WHO,

March

1996,) p.

8.

page 136 Dr. Obousy: Interview by Patrick Cockbum with Dr. Deraid Obousy, Baghdad, 4/19/98.

page 137 576,000 dead children:

page 137 90,000 dying every

New

year:

York Times, 12/1/95.

"Unsanctioned Suffering," op.

cit.,

p. 20.

page 138 Madeleine Albright:

CBS News,

60 Minutes, 5/12/96.

page 138 Greece and Mali: Greece comparison from Cordesman and Hashim, op.

cit.,

p.

127 Mali comparison from The Lancet, 346, 12/2/95.

page 139 Prince Khalid:

New

York Times, 12/14/95.

aaa

n

Chapter

otes

Uday and the Royal Family

6:

page 142 Scene

and Andrew Cockbum,

in National Restaurant: Leslie

"Saddam s Best

August 1992.

Ally" Vanity Fair,

page 143 Saddam pictured darning: Fuad Matar, Saddam Hussein: The

Man, the Cause, and the Future (London: Third World Center,

1981),

p. 251.

page 143 "The higher tionships

For an excellent chart showing the

nobility":

among Saddam Hussein,

rela-

the Ibrahims, and the Majids, see

Faleh A. Jabber, "Batailles des clans de ITrak," Le

Monde Diplomatique

(September 1966).

page 144

Hassan al-Majids

Ali

health: Interview

by Andrew and Patrick

Cockbum with General Wafiq al-Samarrai, London, page 145 "What

this

is

4/12/98.

exaggerated figure": Jonathan Randal, After Such

&

Knowledge, What Forgiveness? (New York: Farrar, Straus

Giroux,

1997), pp. 212-214.

page 145 Hussein

at Kerbala:

Hussein Kamel's

real

crime

apart from the mass execution of rebels, was to destroy city.

There are two shrines

Imam tyrs

Hussein and the other

of the Shia

about

in Kerbala,

faith,

who

hundred yards

five

his

site is

now a public

much

of the old

one containing the tomb of

brother al-Abbas, the founding mar-

The

shrines are

apart. In 1991, the Iraqi army, led

by Hussein

died in battle in a.d. 680.

Kamel, systematically destroyed

The

at Kerbala,

all

the buildings between the shrines.

garden.

page 146 Teetotaler Hussein Kamel: Interview with Abdul Karim Khabariti, former Jordanian foreign

page 146 "did not go 8/12/98, reported

to the office":

on

and prime

minister,

Amman,

al-

9/3/98.

Hussein Kamel, press conference,

BBC Summary of World Broadcasts,

page 147 Barzan: Interview with Barzan Ibrahim

8/14/98.

al-Tikriti,

al-Hayat,

translated in Mideast Mirror, 8/31/95.

page 147 "only

legitimacy": Ibid.

page 149 "treacherous and perfidious people": Saddam Hussein, message to the Iraqi people,

FBIS, 8/30/92,

page 150 Saddam apologizes

p. 16.

for land reforms:

Le Monde Diplomatique,

September 1996. page 150 Faleh Jabber: "Why the

Intifada Failed: Faleh Jabber," Iraq

Since the Gulf War, Fran Hazelton, editor (London:

ZED

Books,

1994), p. 115.

page 151

He

page 151

"I

spoke about

did

my SATs":

when he was sixteen: Matar, op. cit., Leslie and Andrew Cockbum, op. cit.

this

p. 16.

NOTES page 151 Outings Ue Glass,

ABC

to the torture

3D

1

chamber: Infefmation suppUed by Char-

News, from interview with General Hassan al-Naquib,

3/21/91.

page 152 Uday goes

into action: Interview, General

Wafiq al-Samarrai,

London, 3/12/98.

page 154 Latif Yahia the double s account of the and Karl Wendl,

/

Was Saddam's Son (New

Jajo IdlUng: Latif Yahia

York: Arcade, 1997), pp.

162-173.

page 155 King Hussein to Idng,

Amman,

as counselor: Interviews with

former close adviser

2/21/93.

page 156 Abdul: Interview with "Abdul," Washington, D.C., 8/20/98.

page 161

Terrorist

bombs

Baghdad: Middle East Contemporary Sur-

in

vey, vol. XVIII, 1994, p. 327, citing Babel, 2/2/94.

Chapter

7:

Intrigue

page 164 Kuwait

crisis,

the Mountains

in

CUnton address: "Clinton ups Heat on

Iraq,"

Chicago Tribune, 10/11/94.

page 165 Offhand remark by CHnton: Thomas Friedman,

New

York

Times, 1/15/95.

ABC

page 166 Key Bridge Marriott: "Unfinished Business: The

page 167 "the

News, Peter Jennings Reporting,

CIA and Saddam

Hussein," 6/26/97.

capability": Ibid,

page 169 "The way the names were depicted": Interview with former

CIA

official;

Washington, D.C.; 3/19/98.

page 170 Fallout from the Ames

case:

Tim Weiner, David

Johnston, and

Neil Lewis, Betrayal: The Story of Aldrich Ames, an American Spy

Random House, 1995), pp. 285-287, and David Nightmover (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), pp. 310-311. (New

York:

page 171 "What page 174 CIA

I

wanted them

recruits Nuri;

to do":

ABC

News, op.

"work separately":

Wise,

cit.

Ibid,

page 175 PKK: The acronym comes from the Kurdish name "Partei Karkaren Kurd," which translates

page 176 CIA support

for

Spokesman Books, 1977)

as

Barzani:

Kurdistan Workers' Party.

CIA: The Pike Report (London:

p. 197.

page 177 Saddam speech, 3/16/91: FBIS-NES-91-052, page 177 Kurdish

politics:

Dowall (London:

I.

A Modem

p. 28.

History of the Kurds by David Mac-

B. Tauris, 1997)

is

an indispensable guide to the

fractured history of the Kurds. For the shifting alliances discussed

above, see pp. 343-354.

N DTE S page 177 "They are obsessed": MacDowall, op.

INC

page 178

militia

p. 385.

cit.,

numbers: Middle East Contemporary Survey,

ume XVIII, 1994, p. 348. page 179 May 1994 fighting: MacDowall,

op.

cit.,

vol-

p. 386.

page 182 Chalabi borrows money: Interview with former INC London, 3/12/98; interview with former CIA

official,

official,

Washington,

6/20/98.

page 183 "The INA was page 183

as leaky as a sieve": Interview with

former CIA

Washington, D.C.; 8/20/98.

official;

"I

liked Bob":

Interview with Hoshyar Zibari; Washington,

D.C.; 3/19/98.

page 186

"I told

him": Los Angeles Times, 2/15/98.

page 186 "Wafiq, who we had been paying": Interview with Hoshyar Washington, D.C.; 3/19/98.

Zibari;

page 188 Nuri

Chapter

flies

B:

to Washington:

Deaths

in

ABC

page 193 Kamel

BBC

collects

cit.

the Family

page 193 "Ten days before we decided conference, 8/12/95,

News, op.

to travel":

Hussein Kamel, press

Survey of World Broadcasts, 8/14/95.

money:

He

later confided this to

Rolf Ekeus.

Interview with Rolf Ekeus; Washington, D.C.; 6/16/98.

page 194 "We knew he had crossed the border": Interview with Abdul

Karim

al-Kabariti,

page 195 "Don't

let

Amman,

3/9/98.

His Majesty shake hands": Ibid.

page 196 "My daughters spend time with them": page 196 King's interview: Associated

Ibid.

Press, 8/14/95.

page 196 "sinking

ship": Jim Hoagland, Washington page 197 "Between him and the Kurds": Barzani

Post, 8/17/95.

interview, al-Hayat,

translated in Mideast Mirror, 8/31/95.

page 198 Tanous: Interview with a source close ment,

Amman,

to the Jordanian govern-

10/16/95.

page 198 "boiling with hatred": Interview with Rolf Ekeus,

New

York,

Quoted in One Point Safe by Andrew and Leslie Cockbum (New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1997), p. 215. page 199 "We are incompetent": Interview with Rolf Ekeus; Washington, 4/24/97.

D.C.; 6/16/98.

page 200 Ekeus's negotiations with the after the defection of

Special

Commission

Iraqis

immediately before and

Kamel: Report of the Executive Chairman of the

to the

UN

Security Council, S/1995/864, 10/11/95.

N page 200 Purging of

UN

files:

DTES

Presentation by Anjbassador Richard Butler to

Security Council, 6/3/98.

Udays Fedayeen: Independent, London;

page 201

seen by diplomats traveUng on the road between

page 201 "there

8/31/95.

They were

Amman and Baghdad.

not a single street": Hussein Kamel, press conference,

is

BBC

Survey of World Broadcasts, 8/14/95. page 201 "People held parties": Independent, London; 8/16/95.

page 201 Telephone 8/14/95.

link to Jordan:

The correspondent of

covered that he could

BBC

Survey of World Broadcasts,

the Egyptian news agency

call direct

between the two

page 201 Saddam denounces Kamel:

BBC

MENA

dis-

capitals.

Survey of World Broadcasts,

8/14/95.

page 202 "His family has unanimously decided": station

Iraqi TV, 8/12/95.

The

broke into normal programming to make the announcement.

page 202 Kamels

ilhterate letter: International

page 203 Saddam's

raid

Udays

on

10/12/95. Despite the raid

Herald Tribune, 9/18/95.

garage:

Independent,

London;

on the Olympic committee building,

lights

The burning car story could not be checked, but nobody admitted to seeing the smoke from the continued to shine in

its

offices at night.

burning buildings.

page 203 Health of Saddam Hussein: Interview with Wafiq al-Samarrai, London, 3/12/98.

page 203 "O

lofty

page 203 "Victory page 203

mountain!" is

BBC

Survey of World Broadcasts, 8/14/95.

sweet": Independent, 10/14/95.

British poll: Philip Willard Ireland, Iraq:

Development (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937),

page 204 Medical checkup: Washington page 205 Ekeus

still

visiting

A

Study in

Political

p. 332.

Post, 2/24/96.

Kamel: Interview with Rolf Ekeus; Washing-

ton, D.C.; 6/16/98.

page 205 "The al-Kabariti,

girls will

Amman,

have to stay here": Interview with Abdul Karim

3/9/95.

page 206 "Higher Council": Anthony H. Cordesman and Ahmad

S.

Hashim, Iraq: Sanctions and Beyond (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), pp. 68-69.

page 207 Suck him

dry:

BBC Summary of World Broadcasts,

page 208 "the leadership took a

decision":

Washington

8/14/95.

Post, 2/24/96.

page 209 Saddam demands brothers divorce wives: Interview with Abbas Jenabi, Associated Press, 10/1/98.

page 209 Divorce: Independent, London; 9/24/96, Agency.

citing

Iraqi

News

N

DTES

page 210 "We have cut off the treacherous branch": Le Monde Diplomatique, 9/96.

page 210 "Had they asked me": Cordesman and Hashim,

Chapter

9:

27.

cit., p.

"Bring Me the Head OF Saddam Hussein"

page 213 Amneh's

tape:

by Patrick Cockbum

The

in

existence of Abu

INC

official,

INC

London,

tape was revealed

in the

Ghanim

building: Interview with 9/4/98.

INC

bombing: Interview with a senior

page 214 "Bureaucrats

Amnehs

The Independent, London, 3/26/98.

page 214 Arrest of bombers of Jawad, senior

op.

Amneh

Involvement of

official,

in

3/14/98.

CIA": Interview with former

CIA

official;

Washington, D.C.; 6/18/98.

page 216 Banner with Churchill quotation: Described Post, 9/15/96,

though without naming the

right individual,

famous

in the

official.

in the

Washin^on

Mattingly was a forth-

agency for an incident earlier

in his

when he had been serving as acting CIA station chief at the U.S. embassy in Turkey. The ambassador was a somewhat eccentric individual named Strausz Huppe. One morning the ambassador read in the career

paper that Kurt Waldheim, the former Nazi serving

as

UN

Secretary

General, was coming to Ankara. At the morning staff meeting, he

launched into a tirade on the subject of Waldheim s

iniquities, climaxing

with a question to Mattingly: "Mattingly, can you

Idll

Mattingly immediately shot back: "Yes,

page 217 "There should be a official;

can.

But

I

him?" To which won't."

Interview with a former senior

CIA

Washington, D.C.; 2/6/98.

page 217 "He would be senior

rule":

sir, I

CIA

official;

in a

meeting": Interview with a former very

Washington, D.C.; 2/28/98.

page 217 "Deutch mistrusted people": Interview with a former senior

CIA

official;

Washington, D.C.; 3/5/98.

page 218 Tighter and more focused: Washin^on

Post, 9/15/96.

page 218 "Deutch recruited subordinates": Interview with a former senior

CIA

official;

page 219 "we were

CIA

official;

page 219

Turld's secret trip:

Anthony H. Cordesman and Amad

and Beyond (Boulder, CO: Westview,

"I wasn't

mer CIA

former senior

Washington, D.C.; 2/10/98.

Iraq: Sanctions

page 219

Washington, D.C.; 2/6/98.

significantly affected": Interview with a

official,

S.

Hashim,

1997), p. 194.

given any briefings": Telephone interview with a for9/17/98.

page 219

"It is

my

305

OTE S

N

CIA

understanding": Interview„with a former

official,

Arlington, 3/19/98.

page 221 "Not even the chief of

staff:

Telephone interview with Harold

Ickes, 9/18/98.

page 221 "He was much more gung ho": Interview; Washington, D.C.; 9/21/98.

page 221 "Deutch came back from a meeting": Interview; Washington, D.C.; 4/6/97.

page 222 Naji murder: Andrew and Leshe Cockbum, One Point Safe

(New York: Anchor Doubleday, page 223 Al-Khazrajis statement:

Summary of World

1997), p. 200.

BBC

al-Haijat, 4/4/96, as translated in

Broadcasts, 4/4/96.

page 223 Al-Khazraji dumped by CIA: Interview with an

Iraqi opposition

source; Washington, D.C.; 2/19/98.

page 224 Telephone eavesdropping system: Sean Boyne, "Inside Security Network," /ane 5 Intelligence Review,

Iraq's

vol. 9, no. 7, 7/1/97.

page 225 Accord press conference: Press statement on behalf of Dr. Alawi, Secretary General of the Iraqi National Accord, issued

by the

INA, 2/18/96 (one of the few press announcements remaining on the

INA Website

as of

September 1998).

CNN:

page 225 Alawi on

3/2/96. Posted

on

CNN

Website

at 11:55 P.M.

EST, 3/2/96.

page 225 "unqualified success": Washington page 225 Cockbum

article in the

Post, 9/29/96.

Independent: Patrick Cockbum, "Clin-

ton Backed Baghdad Bombers," Independent, London, 3/26/96.

page 225 Antiterror conference: page 226 Nuri leaves page 226

"all

Ibid,

Al-Quds, 7/18/96, 7/22/96.

Iraq:

penetrated by Iraqi security": Interview with Abdul Karim

al-Kabariti,

Amman,

page 226 News of

3/9/98.

Iraqi penetration

drawn

This account

is

sources and

confirmed by

is

largely

and Chalabi s

from

CIA

Washington:

other Iraqi opposition

sources,

page 227 Alawi interview: Washington see, for

INC and

trip to

Post, 6/23/96.

Picked up by wires,

example, Arab Press Service Organization, 6/23/96.

page 228 June 20: A press release from the "Attempted Coup in Iraq," 7/11/96, dates the Other sources suggest they began

page 228 Names of those Jawad, an exceptionally opposition, to

Amnesty

six

days

Iraqi first

National Accord, arrests to

June 20.

later.

Drawn from a letter from Ghanim well-informed member of the non-Accord

arrested:

International, 11/3/96.

NOTES

3D6 page 229 Accord press

release:

"Attempted Coup

in Iraq:

Update, Death

During Interrogation," 7/12/96.

ABC

page 230 Deutch s statement:

CIA and Saddam

"Unfinished Business: The

Chapter

D:

1

News, Peter Jennings Reporting, Hussein," 6/26/97.

Saddam Moves North

page 231 "take a whack

at his prestige":

CIA official; Washington,

Interview with a former senior

D.C.; 2/6/98.

page 233 Hamilton Road and importance of Gali London,

Ali Beg: Independent,

7/6/96.

page 233 Vickers machine gun: Interview with former Ambassador

Bill

Eagleton, one of the most knowledgeable Americans on the subject of the Kurds,

who encountered

embassy

Baghdad

in

page 233 Luxurious

Zibari;

in the 1950s,

villas:

page 234 "they either

the Sourchi while stationed in the U.S.

tell

Personal observation, August 1991.

Zayed

go away,

to

or":

Interview with Hoshyar

Washington, D.C.; 9/7/98.

page 234 "My father was expecting Massoud Barzani

to

come

to lunch":

Interview with Jahwar al-Sourchi, London, 9/8/98.

page 234 Sourchi homes Patrick

leveled, ducks

Cockbum s visit to

page 235 "Many people

wandering through wreckage:

Kalaqin, 9/15/96.

talk

about Massoud": Interview with Kamran

Karadaghi, London, 9/7/98.

page 236 Talabani betrays Iranian Kurds: David MacDowall, History of the Kurds (London:

credit, Talabani also tipped off the

page 236 Warning

to the

page 237 Peshmerga

B. Tauris, 1997), p. 451.

I.

KDPI

that the Iranians

NSC: Independent,

numbers:

An

were coming,

9/6/96.

estimate

by

exceptionally

informed Iraqi opposition observer Ghanim Jawad

London,

A Modem To do him

in

well-

an interview in

9/8/98.

page 237 Attack "backed by howdtzers": Independent, London, 8/22/96. page 238 "We request the U.S." Independent, London, page 239 Talabani "promised

full

9/6/96.

cooperation": Robert Pelletreau, al-

Hayat, 8/2/98.

page 240 Ahmad Allawi began page 243

"It

is

to hear reports: Interview, 9/7/98.

very possible that a

lot

of

INC

people were

killed":

ABC

News, Peter Jennings Reporting, "Unfinished Business: The CIA and

Saddam Hussein,"

6/26/97.

page 243 Clinton statement: Chicago Tribune,

9/1/96.

N page 243

Perry,

"My judgment

page 243 Fear of being seen

DTES

is":

Intematiomil Herald Tribune, 9/9/96.

as Iran's ally:

Washington

page 244 "We have choked Saddam Hussein

Post, 9/8/96.

in the south": International

Herald Tribune, 9/9/96.

page 244 Deutch s testimony: Washington

page 244

KDP secures

bers of the Islamic

Post, 9/20/96.

release of Islamic prisoners: Interview with

Movement

mem-

of Kurdistan, Arbil, 9/14/96.

page 245 Public record of Dole s encounter with Saddam: The

Iraqis

had

malignly released a transcript after the invasion of Kuwait.

page 245 Al-Kabariti Kabariti,

Amman,

page 246 Press

calls

the Americans: Interview with Abdul Karim

criticism:

Washington

Post, 9/9/96.

page 246

Official to

Washington

page 246

"veracity":

Telephone interview with

page 247 Scene

al-

3/9/96.

at

MCC

Post: 9/10/96.

Ahmad Chalabi,

Interviews by Patrick

building:

9/23/98.

Cockbum,

Zaklio, 9/14/96.

page 247 Mines advisory group: Interview with members of the advisory group by Patrick Cockbum, Diyana, 9/16/96.

Chapter

1

1

:

Uday Takes a Hit

page 253 Account of the ambush: This account interview by Patrick

Cockbum

based on a detailed

with Ismail Othman, a

member

of the

London in the summer of 1997. Radio Monte Carlo, Randah Habib

group that organized the ambush,

page 253 Jordanian diplomat:

Amman,

is

in

in

12/13/96.

NES

page 253 "sHghtly wounded": FBIS, (AFP), 12/16/96, quoting Iraqi

96 242. Agence France Presse

News Agency.

page 253 Stock market crashes: FBIS, 12/15/96. page 254

Journalists slaughter sheep:

page 254 Saddam orders care page 254 Two thousand tion),

FBIS,

NES

Baghdad Radio,

for others:

arrests:

12/15/96.

AFP, 12/16/96.

Voice of Rebellious Iraq (Shiite opposi-

96 242, 12/15/96.

page 254 Sabawi and Watban: Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 12/14/96. page 254 Uday suspects

his father: Interview

with a well-connected Iraqi

source; Washington, D.C.; 11/20/98.

page 258

"It

was you and Hussein Kamel": Al-Wasat, London, 3/12/97.

page 260 Battle

at al-Kreeat:

There

is

a dramatic

and somewhat

story about the fight at al-Kreeat in the Jordanian

fanciful

magazine Sawt

al-

NOTES

308

Marah on February 19, 1997. It says that it began after five gunmen had made a renewed attempt to Idll Uday in the Ibn Sina hospital. It failed, and four of them were killed. The fifth was traced to al-Kreeat, which was attacked by a

special force led

by Uday!

says that seventy

It

defenders were killed or captured, as well as four soldiers.

page 260 Saddam s bedside speech: Al-Wasat, London, 3/12/97. page 261 Barzan

Chapter

1

2:

page 263 "price

Al-Quds al-Arahi, London, 9/23/98.

resigns:

is

Endgame worth

page 265 "Not much

CBS News,

it":

60 Minutes, 5/12/96.

unknown": Report by the Secretary General,

is

4/11/97, S/1997/301.

page 265 King

Falid: Interview with a

Western diplomatic source; Wash-

ington, D.C.; 10/10/97.

page 266

concealment

First

inspection:

Unscom

Report,

10/11/96,

S/1996/848.

page 267 Concrete

page 267 Russian ton, D.C.;

pillars: Ibid.

spy: Interview with

November

page 268 "miserable

former Unscom

official;

Washing-

1997.

spy":

Saddam Hussein,

speech, 7/17/97, reported

FBIS, 7/22/97.

page 268

"It is

the Special Republican Guards": Interview with Rolf Ekeus;

Washington, D.C.; 6/16/98.

page 270

Shell game: Haaretz, 9/29/98.

page 271

Helicopter,

highest

authority:

Unscom

Report,

10/6/97,

S/1997/774.

page 271 Saddam s statement from RCC: Iraq page 272 Ritter gives U-2 photos to

page 272 "gravest

of

crisis

Israel:

TV News,

Washington

6/22/97.

Post, 9/29/98.

Clintons] presidency": Time magazine,

[Bill

11/24/97..

page 272 "head quoted

shot":

in Ti^ne

New

York Times columnist Thomas Friedman,

magazine, op.

cit.

page 272 "stunned": Washington

Post, 3/1/98.

page 274 Ritter pulled back: Washington

Post, 8/27/98.

page 275 Castor beans: Jim Hoagland, Washington page 275 Bahrain: FBIS, 2/21/98.

page 276 Town

hall

meeting: 2/18/98. Text released by Department of

State, 2/20/98.

page 277 "You

Post, 2/11/98.

can't go":

Washington

Post, 3/1/98.

DTES

N

page 277 Annan statement: Washington page 278 Saddam on

309 Post, 2/24/98.

tour: Iraqi TV, 3/17/98, as reprinted in the online

newsletter Iraq News.

page 278 "appeasement": Senator Trent

Lott,

Washington

Senator John D. Ashcroft (Republican from Missouri) prevailing

mood

of his party

when he

And

as long as

have a voice, America

I

the

declared that "U.S. foreign pohcy

ought not to be subjected to Kofi Annan or written Nations.

Post, 2/26/98.

summed up at the

United

not sacrifice

will

another ounce of her sovereignty to the architects and acolytes of a one-

world government" (Washington Post, 3/4/98).

page 278 Chalabi testimony: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee Hearings on the Middle East,

page 279 Embezzlement question to Iraq's

Hope," Washington

3/2/98.

a plant: Jim Hoagland,

"From Pariah

Post, 3/5/98.

page 279 Congress votes money: H.R. 3579 Sec. 2005, 4/30/98, Iraq News,

5/1/98.

page 279 Kurdish leaders considered London,

Talabani,

INC

6/6/98. Interview with

defunct: Interview with Jalal

Hoshyar

Zibari,

Washington,

3/16/98.

page 279 Sabotage

plan:

New

York Times, 2/26/98.

page 282 Three nuclear weapons: Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services

Committees Hearings,

9/3/98.

page 282 Haaretz, 9/29/98. page 283 Scott

Ritter:

Interview with Ritter in the

New

York Post,

12/17/98.

page 284 Message from

Andrew Cockbum,

al-Shahristani: E-mail

from Dr. al-Shahristani to

12/18/98.

page 285 UNICEF: Nutritional

status survey at

primary health centers

during polio national immunization days (PNID) in Iraq, March 14—16, 1998.

Made

available to authors

by

UNICEF

office in

Baghdad. The

—24.7 percent; chronimalnourished—27.5 percent; acutely malnourished— 9.0 percent. March 1998: Underweight— 22.8 percent; chronically malnourished 26.7 percent; acutely malnourished— percent. actual figures were: April 1997:

Underweight

cally

9.1

Postscript page 289 Half of 12/13/98.

all

Iraqi children

still

malnourished: Washington Post,

Index Ames, Aldrich, 169, 217

Abbas shrine-tomb story of

Abd

of,

murder

al-Ilah,

Amman, Jordan CIA activities and, 224-25

Najaf, 16, 61 of,

60-61

66

Iraqi activities

Abdul-Hussein Mashadi, Muhie, 77

Abu Amneh al-Khadami, 211-14,

225,

279

Abu Ghraib villa, Abu Nidal, 80

Iraq, 100, 103,

199

Amn al-Amm, 88 Amn al-Khass, 18, founding

of,

and, 124-25, 133-34

35, 193,

229

146

Anderson, Frank, 31-32, 45, 48, 51, 53, 167, 169, 170-71,

Afghanistan, 39, 170, 172

.Aldus,

viewed from, 222-24

commerce

nuclear weapons program and, 103

Accord. See Iraqi National Accord

Ahtisaari, Martii, 55,

Iraqi

Annan,

123

217

277-78

Kofi,

Anthrax, 93, 111,265,270

James, 33, 44

89

Aide, Adel, 154

Arafat, Yasser, 7,

Alawi, lyad, 46-47, 167-68, 215-16,

Arbil, Iraq, 28, 180, 190, 232, 239,

219, 220, 223-24, 227-28, 230 Albright,

CIA

Madeleine

covert actions and, 168, 171

inspection teams and, 274, 276, 282

on sanctions against 263-264, 285 Albu Nasir tribe, 143

Iraq, 137-38,

17-18, 26,

165

Mohammed, 77

Aziz, Tariq

281, 238 invasion of Kuwait and, 7-8, 9, 84-85

Islamic fundamentalism and, 79-80

21

civilian

dad, 34

205

inspection teams and, 199, 271-72,

60-61

Ahmad, 240 Iraq,

al-Assad, Hafez,

Auchi, Nazir, 146

60,61

Amara,

See Iraqi mihtary

Arnold, Steven, 33

Ayesh, of, Najaf, 16,

story of assassination of,

Amariya

al-Salaam, 75

Iraqi.

Attar, Leilah,

24

Imam

shrine-tomb

Allawi,

Abd

Army,

al-Atheer plant, Iraq, 91, 273

Ali, Brigadier, 17, 18, 23, Ali,

241-43, 244-45 Aref,

bomb

shelter,

Bagh-

nuclear weapons production and,

101-2, 106, 109, 111, 112, 199, 201

3

1

2

I

N

Baath Party, 5

DEX Basra, Iraq, 59, 61, 127, 152

assassination attempt against

Qassim

and, 71-72

British capture of, 59,

Iran-Iraq

declining importance

of,

150

Iraqi counterattack on, 25,

economic sanctions and, 149

GulfWarand, 9 Hussein Kamel and,

Saddam

uprising against

249-50

al-Battat, Safa,

Bearden, Milt, 170

Iraqi military insurgents and, 18

al-Bejat clan, 11,68,69, 143

Kurdish revolt and, 19

Bell,

purge of leadership

77-78

of,

referendum on Saddam and,

Gertrude, 63-64

Berger, Sandy, 221, 276

203^

Biological weapons, 92-93, 111-13,

Saddam's coups to seize power and,

74-75

181, 200, 270. See also Blix,

Saddam's early involvement with,

11,

Uday and, 152 Unscom inspections and, 283 uprising against Saddam and actions

Boomer, Walter, 93

Boumedienne, Houari, 76 Broderick, Doug, 115, 116, 137 Brooke, Francis, 54-55

against, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 26,

Bubiyan (Kuwaiti

27

Bull, Gerald,

island), 83,

85

91

Bush, George

Babel (newspaper), 128, 158-59, 160-61, 247

appeal to the Iraqi people from, 12-13, 19, 37-38

Babel TV, 210

Badr Brigade, 22, 47, 183-84 Baghdad, 61

Grand Saddam Mosque proposal

for,

CIA covert operations against Saddam and, 31-32, 34 Gulf War cease-fire and, 14, 22, 32-33

129-30 impact of economic sanctions on,

114-23

Kurds and, 42, 175, 184, 231 military operations during the

Jumhuriya Bridge bombing and rebuilding

Nerve gases

Hans, 103

Botulism, 111,270

70, 71-72, 73

in, 4,

127, 159

terrorism bombings

in,

211-14,

225-26

Ahmed

6,

9-10

Hassan, 69, 70, 75,

76-77

sanctions against Iraq and, 43, 44, 103, 124

Unscom visit to

and, 107

Kuwait

by,

165

Butler, Richard, 270, 274, 276,

Cairo, Saddam's exile Carter, Jimmy,

Barzani, Massoud, 12, 18-19, 28, 52,

in,

283

73-74

54

Catholic Relief Services, 115, 116

172, 177, 178, 180, 186, 187, 197,

CBS News,

280

Central Intelligence Agency. See

Barzani, Mustafa, 176, 177, 236

Barzani family, 159, 177 Barzoft, Farzad,

Gulf

War and, 33-34

Saudi Arabia and, 9

U.S. bombing of, 3^, Baghdad Pact, 74 Bahrain, 275 Baker, James, 9, 52, 57 al-Bakr,

15-16,

Batatu, Hanna, 71

146, 201

57

67,

43

in,

43

17, 21,

Congress (INC) and,

Iraqi National

61-62

war and, 80

83-84

Chalabi,

137-38

Ahmad,

background

CIA

of,

55,

CIA

186-90

50-51

activities and,

51-53, 165-67,

INDEX 171-74, 181-82, 185-90, 214-16,

Cohen, WTlliam, 275, 276

227, 278-79

Communist

Iraqi National

Congress (INC) and,

56-57

Party, Iraqi, 48, 150,

239^0

3

166

Cosenza, John, 250 120-21, 127-28, 286

peacemaker between Kurdish tions, 179-80

Chemical weapons, 91, Nerve gases

fac-

93. See also

Critchfield, James,

al-Dalaimi,

74

Mohammed Mazlum,

192,

255

Cheney, Richard, 32

Dalaim

Churchill, Winston, 216

al-Dawa, 79-80, 254

CIA

Defense IntelUgence Agency (DIA)

Chalabi and the

INC

and, 51-53,

165-67, 171-74, 178, 181-82,

185-90, 190, 214-16, 227, 278-79 covert operations against

Saddam

and, 31-32, 34, 37, 45, 165,

166-67, 168-71, 230

tribe, 149, 167, 192,

171-74

244 Iran-Iraq

war and, 80

Deutch, John M. appointment to CIA, 216-18

INC

and, 227

covert actions in Iraq and, 230

Devine, Jack, 216

economic sanctions against Iraq and, 44, 55-56

al-Dhour, Iraq, 72, 73, 277-78 al-Dhouri, Izzat Ibrahim, 28, 144

Hussein Kamel's defection and, 197

al-Dhouri, Omar, 229

invasion of Kuwait and, 35-36

al-Dhouri, Riyadh, 229

Iran-Iraq war and, 34—35

al-Dhouri tribe, 144, 149

Accord and, 174-75, 182-83, 229-30

Iraqi National

weapons production and, 105

Jordan and, 218-20, 224-25

rise to

by,

Dillon, Gary,

282

Diyala province, 132-33

al-Dohra power

station,

Baghdad,

3, 4,

127

Dohuk,

Kurds and, 176, 248 propaganda used Saddam's

255

covert actions in Iraq and, 220-21,

Chalabi and

decision to send officers to Iraq and,

Iraqi

1

Crime, and economic sanctions,

Kurdistan and, as

3

53-55

Iraq,

28

Dole, Robert, 245

power and, 74—75

Dubdub, Mohammed, 152

terrorism bombings and, 211-14

Duelfer, Charies, 268-69, 276

Unscom

Dulles, Allen, 67

inspections and, 98, 100

Clientism, 215

Economic

Clinton, Bill

covert actions in Iraq and, 220-21,

226 Deutchs appointment

Egypt, 73-74, 153, 284 to the

CIA

and, 216

inspections and, 272-73,

281-85

CNN,

Patrick,

of,

96-97

collection of evidence and,

108-10

confrontation between Iraqi officials and, 105-7

departure

of,

268, 270

Hussein Kamel and, 197-99, 205, 206

225, 276

Cockbum,

Ekeus, Rolf, 265

background

economic sanctions and, 165 Kurds and, 164-65, 184, 237, 243

Unscom

sanctions. See Sanctions

against Iraq

225

Cohen, David, 217, 220

Unscom team 238

and, 97-98, 99-102,

cease-fire in, 14, 22,

Electricity

economic sanctions and,

1

15, 126,

13-14

127 U.S.

32-33

desertion of Iraqi soldiers during,

bombing and, 4

Iraqi invasion of

Euphrates River, 58, 59, 63

Kuwait and,

Iraqi denial of defeat in, Fadlallali,

Mohammed

Hussein, 52

Fahd, king of Saudi Arabia, 265 al-Fahd,

Fahd Alimed, 83

Faisal

I,

king of Iraq, 64-66, 203

Faisal

II,

king of Iraq, 66, 67

Faluja, Iraq,

bombings 90-91

U.S.

in,

3^,

5-6

6,

9-10,

Haaretz (newspaper), 282 Haass, Richard, 37, 40, 56

al-Habubi family, 16-17

228

Fao peninsula, in Iran-Iraq war, 81 Farid, Abdel Majid, 73, 74 FBI, 168, 190, 248-50 FBIS (Foreign Broadcast Information Service),

45

Feisel, Prince Turld bin, 40, 41, 47, 52,

219

al-Hakim, Abdul Wahad, 71

Mohammed

al-Hakim, 184,

Baqir, 21, 47,

280

al-Hakim, Yusuf, 17

al-Hakim

family,

al-Hakam

plant, Iraq, 112,

22

273

Halabja, nerve gas attack on, 49, 97

Firqat Fida'iyyi Saddam, 162

Haldane, Aylmer, 63, 64

Food, and economic sanctions, 115,

Halliday, Denis, 135, 136, 285,

Foreign Broadcast Information Service

40

Harki Galbraith, Peter, 36, 37, Gallucci, Bob, 98,

Nizar, 109,

263

Hamoudi, Ali, 255, 256, 257 Hamzi, Hassan, 13

France, 24, 62, 284 33,

41-42

106-7

232

tribe,

Harris, Arthur ("Bomber"), 65

Harvard School of Public Health, 55, 131-32

Gasoline availability

economic sanctions and, 127

Hashemite

family,

64

Hawlery, Hashim Qadir, 249

bombing and, 4

Gates, Robert M., 43, 44, 114, 263-64

al-Hazaa, Omar, 257-58, 261

Germany, and nerve

al-Hazaa, Ra'ad, 257, 258, 259

gas,

91

280-81

Glaspie, April, 84

Helms,

Gorbachev, Mikhail, 98, 99

Helms, Richard, 31-32 Hill, Roger, 268-69

Gore,

Al,

286

153

Hamas, 226

Hamdoon,

(FBIS), 45

Freeman, Chas.,

Hamed Youssef,

Hamadi,

117-18, 122

U.S.

3, 5,

6-14

165

Grand Saddam Mosque, Baghdad, 129-30 Great Britain, 79, 83, 92 Alawi and, 167-68

Kurds and, 247-48 occupation of Iraq by, 61-67 support for U.S. policy from, 29

Gulf War Bush's appeal to the Iraqi people during, 12-13, 19, 37-38

Jesse, 278,

Hillah, Iraq,

Homer,

20

Charles, 13

Hospitals

economic sanctions and, 132-34, 135-37 U.S.

bombing and, 4

Hussein shrine-tomb

of, Najaf, 16, 61, 145,

197 story of

murder

of,

60-61

3 Hussein, king of Jordan, 7

Hussein Kamel's defection to Jordan

shootiil^ of J^j° ^Y' 153-55 survival and resurgence of,

1

5

261-62

and, 194-96, 210, 218

Hussein Kamel's return to Iraq and,

IAEA

Atomic Energy

(International

Agency), 86, 100, 103, 282

208

Saddam s

role as counselor to

family,

Ibniliim,

Ahmad, 194

Ibrahim, Barzan (half-brother), 68, 77,

155

Saddam s

assassination attempt

Qassim and, 72

against

Hussein,

155,

262

Hussein Kamel and, 146, 147, 202, 207 nuclear weapons program and, 88, 89

Ahmed, 162

Hussein, Khalid, 262

Ibrahim, Hardan, 76, 144

Hussein, Qusay (son), 141, 151, 256,

Ibraliim,

concealment of secret arsenal and,

attempt on Uday's Hfe and, 254 supervision of security by, 147-48

266

coup attempt against Saddam and, family background and, 156, 158

Hussein Kamel's return to Iraq and,

209 supervision of security by, 148, 204

Hussein, Raghad (daughter). See

Kamel, Raghad

of,

192

144, 161, 194, 261

attempt on Uday's

and, 254

life

Uday's criticism

of,

192, 211

Uday's shooting

of,

202, 203

Ibrahim al-Hassan, 68, 144 Ibrahim family, 143-44, 147

Hussein, Rina (daughter). See Kamel,

Ickes, Harold,

221

Immigration and Naturalization Ser-

Rina Hussein, Hala (daughter), 143 Hussein,

Uday's criticism

Ibrahim, Watban (half-brother), 68,

228-29, 237

Saddam rise of,

background

of,

67-71

escape story

of,

72-73

marriage

of, 68,

vice,

INC. See

Baath Party and

70-73

Iraqi National

Congress

InteHigence agencies, Iraqi

dam

142^3, 153

and, 11

Iraqi National

Accord

activities and,

226-27

Hussein, Sajida (wife), 151

Hussein Kamel's return

248

elimination of potential rivals of Sad-

U.S. policy and, 218-19

to Iraq and,

Kurds and, 185-86 support for uprisings against

Saddam

and, 24-25

207 marriage to Saddam, 68, 142-43, 153

Uday

Sabawi (half-brother), 68,

144, 261

261

Hussein,

Uday

attempted

(son),

of,

193, 225,

251-60

142-44

business dealings

education

140-41, 150-51

killing of,

background

of,

161, 162-63,

killing

of Uday and, 255

Hussein Kamel's defection and, 197,

220 individuals fleeing Saddam's regime

and, 173-74 invasion of Kuwait and, 35-36

253

of,

InteHigence agencies, U.S.

attempted

and, 155

Jordan and, 218-20

151-52

Hussein Kamel's IdUing and, 209

Kurds and, 36-37, 242-43

people's fear of, 141-42, 156-57

Soviet development of biological

rising

power

of,

157-63, 192-93

Saddam's curbing

of,

202-3, 204

weapons and, 98-99 and, 267-68

Unscom

3

1

6 Atomic Energy Agency

International

(IAEA), 86, 100, 103, 282

157,

Iran

attempted

killing

of

Olympic Committee, 151, 153, 202 Iraq Petroleum Company (IRC), 74

Iraqi

Uday and,

259-60

Israel, 10, 106, 196, 226,

282

lyud, Abu, 8

Clinton and, 184, 280 Islarnic revolution in,

79-80

Jaafari,

Kurds and, 176, 183-84, 235-39 oil

revenues

66

of,

79

in,

Jafr, Jafr

Saddam and

sup-

port from, 22

nerve gases

Jenabi, Abbas, 159, 209, 262 Jenabi, Ali, 139

Jeremiah, David, 168

Saddam

in,

Dia, 89, 90, 95, 100

Kamel Hannah, 153-55

Jawad, Ghanim, 240-42

war CIA and, 34-35 Kurds and, 12

Iran-Iraq

to

Jajo,

Jash (Kurdish militia force), 19, 28, 149

Iran-Contra episode, 35

monument

186

Jabr al-Sabah, sheikh, 84

overthrow of Shah uprisings against

Mohammed,

Jabber, Faleh, 150

after,

82-83

81-82, 92-93

John Paul

II,

pope, 274-75

Jordan, 29, 148

purges of Iraqi military during, 8

CIA activities

Saddam Hussein

Hussein Kamel's defection

and, 6

Saudi Arabia and, 40, 80, 82

Uday and, 152-53 Communist Party,

Iraqi

Iraqi Football Association, Iraqi Journalists Union,

202

254

to,

194-96, 205-7 Iraqi activities

48, 150, 166

and, 218-20, 224-25

viewed from, 222-24

support for U.S. from, 204, 218-19 Juburi tribe, 149, 167

Jumhuriya Bridge, Baghdad,

4, 127,

159

Iraqi military

Iran-Iraq war and, 80

Justice

Department, 190

Kurds and, 42 revolt

among,

after the invasion of

Kuwait, 14-18

Saddam's

al-Kabariti,

Abdul Karim, 50, 83-84,

219, 221, 245

visits to,

during invasion of

Hussein Kamel's defection to Jordan and, 194, 197, 205-6, 206-7

Kuwait, 10-11 U.S. support for potential rebels

among, 38-41

Hussein Kamel's return to Iraq and,

208 Accord and, 226 of, 233-35

Accord (al-Wifaq) background to, 45-46

Kalaqin, Iraq, destruction

CIA

Kamel, Hakim, 209-10

Iraqi National

and, 174-75, 182-83, 226,

229-30

Kamel, Hussein, 22, 26, 144, 152, 220,

covert activities Iraqi National

CIA

of,

225-30

Congress (INC), 255

and, 165-67, 171-74, 178, 190,

258 concealment of secret arsenal and,

265-66 defection to Jordan by, 76, 193-96

278-79 founding

Iraqi National

of,

56-57

Kurdistan and, 239-40, 248 terrorism bombings in

Jordanian relations with, 194—96,

205-7

213-14 U.S. support

Baghdad and,

Ekeus and Unscom and, 197-99, 205, 206

for,

57

killing of,

209-10

INDEX uprising against

Kurds and, 180 nuclear weapons program and, 89,

of,

161, 163

in, 16, 18,

21

261

Republican Guard and, 146, 196, 201 return to Iraq by, 207-9

Saddams denunciation Saddam's rise to power

Khairallah Tulfah

Saddam's early years and, 68, 69, 71,

of,

201-2

and, 145-48,

72

Saddam's marriage to daughter Khairallah Tulfah, Adnan,

Kamel, Raghad, 143, 144 attempt on Uday s divorce

live

and, 253-54

to Jordan by, 191, 193, 196, 204,

of husband

of,

210

Khatami,

al-Khoie,

marriage to Hussein Kamel, 145, 147 return to Iraq by, 207, 209

Mohammed, 280

attempt on Uday's

223

Grand Ayatollah abu

al-Qas-

sim, 20-21, 23, 24, 26-27, 52

al-Khoie,

Kamel, Rina, 143, 144

Mohammed Taqi,

26

al-Khoie, Sayid Majid, 21, 23, 41, 52,

life

and, 253-54

259 Khomeini,

209

of,

Hussein Kamel's defection and move

Ayatollali

Iran-Iraq

war and,

6, 80, 81,

92

to Jordan by, 191, 193, 196, 204,

revolution in Iran and, 79-80

205

uprising against

of husband

marriage

of,

of,

210

147

return to Iraq by, 207

of,

marriage

by, 72,

147

80

at,

66 of, 19,

Mohammed,

16

Kay, David, 100-101, 105-6

(Kurdish Democratic Party),

(Kurdish Regional Government),

Kroll Associates, 124

Kubba, Laith, 49-50, 51, 55, 56, 166 Kufa, Iraq, 60 uprising against

Saddam

in, 16,

18-19, 177-79, 189, 213-14,

18-19, 177-79, 189, 213-14,

235-39, 245-46

(Kurdistan Democratic Party of

Iran),

236

Kelly, John, 49, 83,

18

Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP),

235-39, 245-46

KDPI

28,

278

175, 179

return to Iraq by, 208-9

KDP

182,

KRG

147

Karadaghi, Kamran, 236

Kassim,

of,

Kurdish revolt and capture

209-10 of,

39

Khorramshahr, battle discovery of oil

defection to Jordan by, 191, 204

Saddam

Saddam and posters

of, 21, 22, 24, 25,

Kirkuk, Iraq

Kamel, Saddam, 144 film portrayal of

153,

al-Khatin Hospital, Baghdad, 135-36 Khazraji, Nizar, 14-15,

205

divorce

8, 70,

155-56 Khalid bin Sultan, Prince, 138-39

209

of,

Hussein Kamel s defection and move

kiUing

of,

68, 142, 144

150

killing

7

Khairallah, Luai, 156, 194, 251, 258,

pressures of exile and, 204—6

killing

Saddam

1

Khamenei, Ayatollah, 52

102

power

3

Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), 175, 179

84

Kerbala, Iraq Iraqi counterattack on, 23, 26, 29, 52,

145 Shia Islam and, 59, 60

Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran

(KDPI), 236

Kurds

Bush and,

42, 175, 184, 231

Clinton and, 164-65, 184, 237, 243

N Kurds

Hussein Kamel s return to Iraq and,

(cont.)

evacuation to

Guam

of individuals

209-10 on Saddam Hussein and referendum

from, 248-50 gassing and execution

of, 12, 36, 49,

campaign, 203

purge of Baath Party leadership and,

91 Iran and, 176, 183-84,

Iraqi National

78 Saddam's refiance on, 68, 148, 150

Congress (INC) and, 57

Iraqi sanctions on,

nationalism

235-39

185-86

Iraqi intelligence on,

175-77

in,

al-Majid, Izz al-Din, 103, 199, 207, 209,

232-35

266

41^2

revolt of, 18-19, 28-29,

al-Majid,

Sourchi tribe and, 233-35 U.S. protection

of, 59,

61-62

Kuwait. See also Gulf War visit to,

Hussein Kamel's defection to Jordan and, 201-2 Hussein Kamel's return to Iraq and, 208-9, 210

165

Marik, Warren, 172, 179-80, 215-16

Iran-Iraq war and, 80, 82 Iraqi oil revenues and,

Kuwait, Iraqi invasion

Kamel Hassan, 209, 210 143^4, 147, 192

al-Majid family,

231-32

for,

Kut, Iraq, British capture

Bush's

suppression of the Kurds by, 144-45 al-Majid, Hussein, 143

67

of,

power centers

also

DEX

79

of, 3,

6-14. See

Gulf War

Matti, William,

229

Mattingly, Bob,

216

Maude,

desertion of Iraqi soldiers during,

13-14

62 Meguid, Hussein Abdel, 73-74 Sir Stanley,

Merfalen, Mark, 250

Iraqi denial of defeat in, revolts against

Saddam

5-6

after,

Military, Iraqi. See Iraqi military

14-18

Saddam s reasons for, 84—85 Saddam s visit to soldiers during, 10-11

Military Coordination Center

(MCC),

232, 247 Miller,

Clement, 81

Mines Advisory Group, 247 Missiles, Iraqi, 93-94. See also

Lally, Rich,

101

Lawrence, T.E., 64, 65 Libya, 119

79,

Long Days, The Lott, Trent,

Nuclear

weapons production Mitchell, Don, 171-72 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, shah of Iran,

Lake, Tony, 171, 189, 221

(film), 72,

147

176

Mohssan, Abu Abdul, 220 Mossad, 106

278

Mosul, Iraq, 61, 62, 182, 228, 278

222

MacDowall, David, 177

Mu'alla, Tahseen,

MacGaffin, John, 170

Mubarek, Suzanne, 153 Mujaheddin, 170, 172

Mack, David, 50

Mahmoud, Abed Hamid,

14, 266,

268-69 129, 145, 256, 258, 261

on rebels

(secret police), 22, 35, 47,

226

al-Majid, Ali Hassan ("Chemical Ali"),

attacks

Mukhabarat

by,

27

dismissal of, 192, 193

Hussein Kamel s defection to Jordan and, 195-96, 201-2, 207, 209

coup against Saddam and, 228-29 Jordan and, 222, 224

Kurds and, 244, 245 nuclear weapons program and, 88, 89, 103,

266

al-Mustaqbal, 225

N al-Nahdah (opposition group), 255-60, Najaf, Iraq,

59

Union of Kurdistan (FUK),

18-19, 177, 179, 189, 235-39,

245^6

52 shrine-tomb of Imam Ali

16,

at,

16-18,

in,

20-21

Ahmed, 245

Gamal Abdel,

73,

Abd

(Palestine Liberation Organiza-

97

Poison gas. See Nerve gases

Power stations economic sanctions and, U.S. bombing and, 4

war and, 81-82 production of, 91-92

Iran-Iraq

12, 36, 49,

guerrillas, 18-19, 28, 41,

Thomas, 43

Pickering,

tion),

al-Razzaq, 75-76

Nerve gases

Kurds and,

Peshmerga

FLO

74

National Security Council, 184 al-Nayif,

243

Petra Bank, 50-51, 56, 279

Nassariyah, Iraq, 14-15, 23-24, 247 Nasser,

278

Perry, William,

232, 237, 241

Muwaffaq, 229

al-Nassari,

Perie, Richard,

Persian Gulf War. See Gulf War

Muayad Hassan, 222

al-Naquib, Hassan, 151, 166, 172 al-Nasiri,

Felletreau, Robert, 237-38, 239, 242,

243

17-18, 26, 60, 61 uprising of the Iraqis

New

Price, Ted, 168-70,

91

York Times, 109, 214, 276

126, 127

217

Primakov, Yevgeny, 273, 281

Nixon, Richard M., 98

Project 1728, 102, 107, 199, 201

Nuclear weapons production

FUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan),

CIA

and, 89-90

18-19, 177, 179, 189, 235-39,

economic sanctions Hnked

94-95,

to,

245-46

109-10, 113, 264

impact on daily Ufe

of, 1

psychological advantage

14-23 of,

265

Saddam's desire to maintain, 104—5 al-Shahristani's research and,

U.S.

1

Palestin©i,iberation Organization

Patriotic

Iraqi counterattack on, 23, 26-27,

Iraqi

3

(FLO), 97

262

Naji,

DEX

bombing

86-89

and, 32, 90-91

Muammar, 119 Abd al-Karim, 7, 67, 69 Saddam and assassination attempt

Qaddafi,

Qassim,

against,

71-72

epic film depicting, 72, 147

Nun, Adnan, 174-75,

183, 188, 212,

213, 214, 222, 226

Obousy, Deraid, 135-36

al-Qaysi, Ryadh, 109

Quayle, Dan, 40

al-Quma,

battle

at,

183

Qushtapa camp, Kurdistan,

241^2

Oil exports British occupation of Iraq and, 66 economic sanctions and, 29-30, 115 Iran-Iraq war debts and, 82 Kuwait and, 79 oil-for-food proposal and, 134-35

Olympic Committee, 157, 202

Iraqi, 151, 153,

al-Radi,

Nuha, 120

Radio broadcasts, 54 support for possible Iraqi coup

45-46 U.S.

bombing of Iraq

Operation Desert Fox, 284

Rafsanjani,

Operation Provide Comfort, 42

Ramadi,

Othman,

Ismail,

255-60

and, 10

Radio Free Iraq, 279

Akbar Hashemi, 81 228

Iraq, 192,

Rania, Iraq, 19

in,

9

N

3 ZD

DEX Saddam's Commandos, 162

Rashid, Amer, 109-10, 112

nuclear weapons inspection and,

al-Sadr,

Mohammed

Bakr, 80

Sadmddin Aga Khan,

199-200, 269

Hussein Kamel's defection and, 204 Rashid, Khalid Abdul Rashid, Klialid Abdul

Munam, 125 Monem, 127

Safire, William,

al-Salihaf,

Prince, 123

42

Mohammad

al-Said, Nuri,

202

Said,

65-66

Rashid, Latif, 50

Saladin, 69, 85

Rasul, Kosorat, 242

Salahudin, Iraq, 172-73, 232, 239,

al-Rawi, Walid, 16, 25

245

Razaq al-Hashemi, Abdul, 87

RCC.

See Revolution

Salem, Niyaz, 246

Command Coun-

Rendon, John, 53-54, 55, 56, 165 Republican Guards

exile in Syria of,

meeting between CIA and, 35 nerve gas and, 92, 93, 201 nuclear weapons program and, 110-11

invasion of Kuwait and, 7

war and, 81 counterattacks on

on

Iran-Iraq

failure to intercept,

22

29 Samawa,

Iraq, 21,

24

Samaw'al, Ata, 228, 229

249

Command Council (RCC)

Revolution

and, 152

uprising of the Iraqis and, 14-15, 25,

uprising of the Iraqis and, 15, 18 P.,

casualties in Kuwait, 13

Uday

rebellious

towns and, 23, 26, 29

Rettig, Jennifer

180-81, 182,

of,

186, 188

coup attempt against Saddam and Hussein Kamel and, 146, 196, 201

Schwarzkopfs

205

Kurds and defection

Bush's briefing on, 32

Iraqi

Samarra, Iraq, 29 al-Samarrai, Wafiq, 6, 14

cil

Sanctions against Iraq

referendum on Saddam and, 204

agriculture and, 125-26

Saddams

Albright on, 137-38, 263-264

rise to

power and,

71, 75,

77

Unscom

inspections and, 271

Richardson,

Bill,

278

Richter, Steve, 217, 220, Rifai, Zeid,

free

227

market and, 124—25

imported food and medicine under,

123-24

7-8

Ritter, Scott, 99, 270, 272,

273-74, 278,

international support for,

observers on effects

282, 285

"Road to Baghdad, The" 33

(secret plan),

Royal Air Force (RAF), Great Britain,

65,66 Rumailah oil

Bush and, 43, 44, 103 Chnton and, 165

of,

55-56

123,

oil-for-food proposal and,

286

134-35

return to Islamic beliefs and, 128-30,

286 for, 43-45, 55 weapons production linked to, 94—95, 109-10, 113, 264 Sarin, 82, 97. See also Nerve gases

U.S. support

field,

85

al-Rustamiya treatment plant, Baghdad, 131

Saudi Arabia Sa'adi, Ali Saleh,

74

Iran-Iraq

war and,

40, 80, 82

Sadat, Anwar, 74

Jordan and, 218-19

Saddam City, Baghdad, 140, 257 Saddam Hussein. See Hussein, Saddam

relations

between Iraq and,

47,

89

Shia uprising in Iraq and, 39-40

U.S. policy in Iraq and, 33, 39-40,

U.S. support al-Sayef,

Special Republican Guards, 199

9

for,

coup attempt against Saddam and

Buha'a Hussein, 133

Schevardnadze, Edvard, 99

Hussein Kamel's defection and, 196,

Schwarzkopf, Norman, 22, 24, 41

201 nuclear weapons program and, 103,

Scowcroft, Brent, 34, 40, 57

266, 268, 284

Seaman, Diane, 271

111-12

Spertzel, Richard,

Senate

Foreign Relations Committee, 32, 67 Intelligence Committee, 171-72 Sewage system economic sanctions and, 127, 130-32 U.S. bombing and, 4 Shah of Iran (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi), 79,

176

Stahl, Lesley,

137-38

Department economic sanctions against Iraq and, 44

State

Iraqi treatment of

Kurds and, 12-13,

36-37, 166, 240

support for Iraqi opposition and,

49-50, 280

al-Shahbander, Samira, 153 al-Shahristani, Hussain, 86-89, 184,

284-85

Straub, Chris, 171-72

Sulaimaniya, Iraq, 28, 29

Hamid, 14 Shanshal, Abdul Jabber, 152

Sunnis

Shakar,

economic sanctions and, 148-^9

Mohammed Abdullah,

al-Shawani,

al-Sheikhly, Salah,

historic conflicts

hms

223-24, 229-30

Shia

Special Commission. See United

Nations Special Commission

243, 272

221-22

between Shia Mus-

and, 59-61

Kurds and, 12

Mushms, 11-12 63-64

British occupation of Iraq and,

economic sanctions and, 149 Grand Ayatollah al-Khoie and, 20-21

between Sunni Muslims and, 59-61

Saddam and, 11, 79-80, 192 Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, 21, 47, Syria, 48,

280

73

historic conflicts

Saddam

uprising of the Iraqis and, 13, 15, 16

Shirwan, Azad, 13 Shultz, George, Sinjari,

Talabani,

36

50

Jalal, 12,

Iranian support

for,

235-39

Kurdish revolt and, 18-19, 28, 177,

Karim, 246

60 Minutes

Tabun, 82, 97. See also Nerve gases Taha, Rihab, 112

and, 12

178-79, 180, 189

(television program),

137-38

Smidovich, Nikita, 98, 99, 109-10, 266,

268

State

Department and, 36-37, 280

Tarmiya nuclear

facility, Iraq,

Soldiers, Iraqi. See Iraqi military

Tawarah, Nayef, 206-7, 208

al-Sourchi, Hussein Agha, 233-34,

Tenet, George, 168, 171, 218

Thalhum

234 al-Sourchi, Jahwar, 234, 235, al-Sourchi, Zayed, 23^-34,

280

235

al-Tikriti,

Union weapons and, 98-99 9, 81, 92,

249-50 130-31

Tikrit, Iraq, 11, 62, 67,

68-69, 228

Haji Sadoun, 71

al-Tikriti, Salih

Omar Ali,

220

biological

support for Iraq and,

(poison),

Tigris River, 4, 58-59,

Sourchi clan, 232-35 Soviet

100

Tamoff, Peter, 168

148

Tome, Butrous

Eliya,

229

46, 47, 48,

N

322 Townsend, Charles, 61-62 Tulaiha, Iraq, 13-14

DEX Saddam's reaction

to,

96

al-Samarrai's defection and,

110-11

Turkey British occupation of Iraq and, 63,

65

Kurds and, 36, 57, 177, 178, 232, 243

Voice of America, 10, 83

al-Tuwaitha, Iraq, 100

Voice of Free Iraq, 45-47

Twetton, Tom, 216

VX nerve

agent, 91-92, 108, 111, 201,

265, 270, 271, 281

Uday Hussein. See Hussein, Uday al-Ulum,

Mohammed

UNICEF,

131, 275,

Balir,

166

285-86

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 137

United Nations Special Commission

(Unscom) Annan's

visit

and, 277-78

weapons and, 111-13, 181 Chnton and, 272-73, 281-85 collection of evidence by, 107-10 biological

confrontation between Iraqi officials and, 105-7, 271-76 creation of, 95-96

economic sanctions and. See Sanctions against Iraq

Ekeus and, 97-98, 99-102 goals of, and success, 138-39

Wahlroos, Viktor, 132

Warba

(Kuwaiti island), 83, 85

Post, 109, 227, 246, 282 Water purification systems economic sanctions and, 130-32 U.S. bombing and, 4

Washington

Weapons production. See Nuclear weapons production al-Wifaq. See Iraqi National Accord

Wilson, Arnold, 62-63

Woolsey, James, 169-70

World World World World

Bank, 115

Health Organization, 135, 137

War War

I,

61

II,

66, 91

Worthington-Evans, Laming, 65

Wren, "Big Ron," 172

Hussein Kamel's defection and,

197-99

Yahia, Latif, 154

inteUigence organization and, 267-68

Yediot Aharanot (newspaper), 196

between Iraqi high command and, 268-70 Iraqi plan for concealment of

Zangana, Raja, 255, 257

interaction

weapons from, 102^, 137-38, 200, 238, 265-67 Iraqi policy of calculated concessions

and, 96-97

Zibari, Hoshyar, 183, 185, 186, 187,

188, 234, Zibari clan,

237

232

al-Zubaidi, Saad, 126

al-Zubeidi,

Mohammed Hamza,

27

(continued from front flap )

price"*

S')

long as

Out of the

'^slies

Saddam Hussein remains makes chillingly clear

in power.

how

just

terrible that price has been. "Robert M. Gates, Deputy National Security Adviser (May

7, 1991).

Patrick Cockburn has been a senior Middle

East correspondent for the Financial Times and the

London Independent

since 1979.

Among

the

most experienced commentators on Iraq, he was

one of the few

journalists

remain

Baghdad

to

during the Gulf War.

He

is

in

currently based in

Jerusalem for the Independent.

Andrew Cockburn is

the author of several

books on defense and international affairs.

He

has also written about the

Middle East

for

The

New

Yorker and coproduced the 1991 tary

on Iraq

lives in

titled

"The War

We

PBS documen-

Left Behind."

He

Washington, D.C.

Jacket design © 1999 by Marc Cohen Jacket photographs: large © Sygma, inset

©

Gamma-Liaison Author photographs: top © 1999 by Ariel Jerozolimski, bottom © 1999 BY Leslie Cockburn

Md^vpcrCollinsPHblishers http://www.harpercollins.com

ISBN 0-06-019266-6 52600

780060"192662