The tyrant of Baghdad

How did Saddam come to power?

Through scheming and violence of an almost pantomime-villain variety. Born in the town of Takrit 65 years ago, he was known as a child for his wanton cruelty to animals. His family was notoriously violent, and Saddam himself, while still a teenager, murdered at least four people from neighboring tribes. He joined the Ba’ath Party—a quasi-fascist outfit espousing a mix of pan-Arab nationalism and socialism—and in 1968 emerged as one of the leaders of a new Ba’ath Party government. Saddam prospered, partly because he was a member of the Tijkriti clan, which held sway in the Iraqi army, and partly because he ruthlessly eliminated his main rivals. By 1979 he felt strong enough to elbow aside President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and take the top spot.

How did Saddam consolidate his power?

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

He began by inventing a conspiracy against himself and calling on relatives and ministers to help in the “democratic” executions of innocent men, some of them close friends. Saddam has deployed terror tactics ever since. Children have had their eyes gouged out to force confessions from adult relatives. Defectors to the U.S. have received videotapes of their daughters being raped by Saddam’s guards. When Iraq’s leading female radio presenter insulted Saddam’s wife, the woman was tortured until she confessed; she was then hanged and her tongue cut out and sent to her family. In 1995 two of Saddam’s sons-in-law fled to Jordan for fear of Saddam’s eldest son, Uday, but then returned in the belief they had been pardoned. They were shot by a firing squad led by their own uncle.

How has Saddam maintained his support?

The basis of his power is his clan—the Tijkritis—and his extended family, who monopolize the top positions in the army and government. The power of the ruling elite rests largely on the 100,000-strong Republican Guard, at the core of which are 20,000 loyalists who form a Special Republican Guard, overseen by political commissars reporting to Saddam’s son Qusay. The loyalty of the elite is cemented by two contrary emotions: fear of Saddam and fear of the inevitable reprisals if he goes. Meanwhile, his sons, Uday and Qusay, are being groomed for the succession; their bitter rivalry is now a central feature of Iraq’s domestic politics.

Has anyone ever tried to overthrow Saddam?

There have been many attempts, all futile. In 1996 a plot by members of the Republican Guard was betrayed and 130 military officers were rounded up and shot. In fact, a military coup is near impossible to organize since no Iraqi division can move without permission from the political commissars. Most Iraqis would like to see Saddam ousted, said one opposition exile, “but the people will only rise up to destroy the monster when they know the monster is already gone.”

Has the West fomented revolt?

It has always been wary, fearing that with Saddam gone, Iraq could be balkanized into three mutually antagonistic entities: the Kurds in the north (who form 19 percent of Iraq’s 2 million people); the Shiite Muslims in the south (about 53 percent); and the Sunni Muslims, the branch Saddam belongs to, who occupy Iraq’s heartland and its capital, Baghdad (Sunnis make up only 15 percent of the population, yet they dominate the country’s political life). In 1991 the Kurds and Shiites rose up in response to American calls to overthrow the tyrant, but the U.S. got cold feet. The expected Western air cover didn’t materialize and the rebels were abandoned to Saddam’s troops.

Is there a democratic alternative to Saddam?

Since 1992 the U.S. has pinned its hopes on the Iraqi National Congress, a coalition set up in the aftermath of the Gulf War. The INC’s leader, Ahmed Chalabi, a secular Iraqi Shiite, is a controversial businessman who was once convicted of embezzlement in a Jordanian banking scandal. Although the CIA has funded the group, there is growing concern about the quality of its leadership and the strength of its popularity.

Are the Kurds an alternative?

Maybe. In 1989 Saddam murdered some 70,000 Kurds, many with poison gas, so Kurdish hatred of his regime is strong. For some years the rivalry between the two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, prevented them from posing a unified challenge to the regime. The two sides finally patched up their differences in 1999, and thanks to the West’s policy of safe havens and no-fly zones, they now control a quasi-state in northern Iraq, in much the same way the Northern Alliance had its own territory in Afghanistan.

What about the Shiite majority?

The Shiite Muslims in the south are in the best position, militarily, to challenge Saddam. The trouble is that the main opposition in the area, the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which conducted a low-level guerrilla campaign throughout the ’90s, favors an Iranian-style Islamic theocracy. This would be inimical not only to the West, but also to the Kurds (who are Sunni), to Sunni Iraqis, and to neighboring Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia. Equally, the prospect of a “free Kurdistan” in the north terrifies Turkey, Iran, and Syria, who fear it would incite their own Kurdish minorities. Iraq’s neighbors fear Saddam, but they also fear what could follow his ouster. That is why they have tolerated him for so long.

Is Saddam a real threat?

Yes. Saddam has been linked to terror plots against U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf, as well as an assassination plot against former president George Bush. Saddam has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and given money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. He launched a war against Iran in the 1980s and an invasion of Kuwait in 1991, which led to the Persian Gulf War. But what most worries the West is the possibility that Saddam will acquire—and use—biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Since he kicked out U.N. inspectors in 1998, no one knows how much progress he’s made in rebuilding his chemical and biological weapons factories, or in obtaining the makings of a nuclear bomb. If he gets his hands on enough uranium or plutonium, the U.S. and other Western governments believe, Saddam’s regime could build a nuclear weapon now. Some Iraqi defectors, particularly former government official Khidir Hamza, say the threat is imminent, but skeptics question whether Hamza is exaggerating to provoke a U.S. invasion. Analysts from the moderate Brookings Institution to the conservative Hoover Institution agree, though, that Hussein will sooner or later seek his revenge on the U.S.