Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=11/26/02

TYPE=FOCUS

NUMBER=8-035

TITLE=SADDAM HUSSEIN

BYLINE=MARY MOTTA

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=ED WARNER

INTRO: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been called a madman, the Annointed One, the Glorious Leader and Great Uncle. He is expected to assume these various roles as he faces possible war with the United States. Analysts say Saddam will do anything to stay in power. VOA's Mary Motta takes a look into the mind of the Iraqi president.

///SADDAM SPEECH 5 SECONDS AND FADES UNDER///

TEXT: Saddam Hussein gave his famous "Mother of all Battles " speech on the threshold of the Gulf war in 1991, securing his role as one of modern history's most despised yet most durable Middle East rulers. What is the secret of his survival?

Iraqi-born Adeed Dawisha, professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio, says Saddam's greatest survival tool is his relentless quest for power.

//DAWISHA ACT///

He would do anything to survive. He would use coercion. He would use brutality. He would compromise. He would make concessions. Anything that it takes for him to survive. He does act like a tyrant father. He gives and he takes away. His rewards are legion. Those who are loyal to him have been rewarded fabulously. By the same token, his punishment is well known around the world.

///END ACT///

On Saddam Hussein's right wrist are three blue dots. Given to children to designate their tribal roots, this small tattoo speaks volumes of who he is and how he operates.

Political and psychological specialists who have studied Saddam say tribalism is a key component in his makeup. Any activity, lying, cheating, even killing is okay, as long as it can be justified on tribal grounds.

Saddam's clan, al-Khatab, is from the village of al-Awja, just east of Tikrit in north central Iraq. Its inhabitants are known by many as violent and clever.

Entifadh Qanbar is the director of the Iraqi National Congress office here in Washington. He survived a harrowing 47 days in a military jail after being accused of disloyalty. He says Saddam will use any method to insure loyalty: arbitrary arrests, torture, murder, rape.

///QANBAR ACT///

Iraq is the only country where rapists have a job in the government. They receive benefits, salary, government I.D. The government ID doesn't say rapist. In a very nice articulate Arabic way (it says): Women's Honor Violator.

///END ACT///

Stories of Saddam Hussein's use of rape as a weapon of intimidation are widespread. Dissidents who fled Iraq have told of receiving videotapes showing the rape of female relatives back home in retaliation for their perceived disloyalty.

Born in 1937, Saddam began his campaign of fear early in life. In 1963, he joined the secular pan-Arab Ba'ath party in control of Iraq, and rose through its ranks. In 1979, he became party leader , took over the country and asserted himself in the region. A year later, he ordered a surprise cross-border attack on Iran. This was meant to be a swift operation to capture the Shatt al-Arab waterway leading to the Gulf. But Iranian resistance was far stronger than he had imagined. Eight years later, with hundreds of thousands of young people killed and the country deep in debt, he agreed on a ceasefire.

During this time, Saddam became more power-hungry, turning away from the Ba'ath party and becoming increasingly dependent on his family, says Professor Dawisha.

///DAWISHA ACT 2///

From seventy-nine onward, you see Saddam Hussein emerging as the central figure, and the position of the party becomes weaker and weaker. And what makes it even more weak is his increasing reliance on his family and on his tribe And that's when the family emerges. In the 1980's and just around the Gulf war, it is very clear that it is no longer the Ba'ath Party that rules Iraq, but Saddam and his family.

///END ACT///

Saddam has been married to his wife Sajida for nearly 40 years. She is his first cousin on his mother's side and the daughter of Khairillah Tulfah, Saddam's uncle and political mentor. They have three daughters and two sons.

These two sons, Uday and Qusay, play pivotal roles in the regime. For a long time, Uday was seen as the heir apparent. But he proved too tempestuous -- accused of violent acts, which embarrassed his father.

Professor Dawisha says Qusay is even more dangerous than his older brother.

///DAWISHA ACT 3///

The wrap is that it is Qusay who has been in charge over the last seven to eight years of hiding weapons of mass destruction. That's his responsibility.

///END ACT///

No one knows better about the mindset of Saddam's offspring than Ismail Hussain. The singer became very popular after the Gulf war and was often hired by Uday to perform at weekly parties.

///HUSSAIN ACT IN ARABIC WITH TRANSLATION////

He says that Saddam had no interest in these parties. These parties are organized by Uday and Qusay his sons. The invite their cousins and friends and a number of women will come. Some will come again and some will not. The parties became really loud and everyone gets really drunk.

///END ACT///

The Iraqi singing sensation, who lost a leg in the Gulf war in an attack by a U-S fighter jet, says Uday became envious of all the attention he was getting. He fled for his life to Toronto, where he now lives.

Analysts agree that while the Middle East is awash in a sea of dictatorships, Iraq's regime is the most oppressive.

Rachel Bronson of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York says Saddam's methods are increasingly ruthless.

///BRONSON ACT///

In terms of internally displaced people in Iraq -- that is, Iraqis, who have been kicked out of their own homes and moved elsewhere in Iraq -- the number in Saddam Hussein's Iraq are among the highest in the world. It's an incredibly brutal regime. He's been involved in ethnic cleansing attempts in the north. We have heard the stories of him using chemical weapons against his own population in the north. He's engaged in guerilla activity in the south against the Shi'a.

///END ACT///

In this post-September 11th world, several figures have emerged who are rattling global nerves. Osama bin Laden occupies center stage as the world's number one terrorist. But Professor Dawisha says he should be distinguished from Saddam.

///DAWISHA ACT 4///

The difference with Osama bin Laden is the violence that he perpetrates is against outsiders. Against Americans. Against Christians, Against Europeans. Osama doesn't perpetuate that kind of violence against his own people.

///END ACT///

According to Arthur Helton, director of peace and conflict studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, some 4,000 villages in the northern Iraq alone, have been destroyed by the Ba'ath regime between 1980 and 1988. Thousands have died as a result of chemical weapons used against them by Saddam's regime.

///HELTON ACT///

Iraqis are now the largest asylum-seeking population in Europe. They are increasingly a feature in U-S asylum policy as well. We should realize that something terrible has happened and is happening in Iraq.

///END ACT///

///BEGIN 5 SECONDS OF IRAQI MUSIC AND FADE UNDER///

This week, U.N. arms inspectors have arrived in Baghdad after a four-year absence to begin a mission which could tip the balance between war and peace in the Middle East. Iraqi dissidents, such as Entifadh Qanbar of the Iraqi National Congress, are hoping that if an invasion happens, the U-S- will be swift in removing Saddam Hussein from power so that a battered population can begin to heal.

For Focus, this is Mary Motta