Saddam
Hussein, President of Iraq for the past two decades, has the dubious
distinction of being the world's best known and most hated Arab leader.
And
in a region where despotic rule is the norm, he is more feared by his own
people than any other head of state.
A
former Iraqi diplomat living in exile summed up Saddam's rule in one sentence:
"Saddam is a dictator who is ready to sacrifice his country, just so long
as he can remain on his throne in Baghdad." Few Iraqis would disagree with
this. Although none living in Iraq would dare to say so publicly.
The
Iraqi people are forced to consume a daily diet of triumphalist slogans,
fattened by fawning praise of the president.
The Iraqi leader stares down on his
citizens
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He
is portrayed as a valiant knight leading the Arabs into battle against the
infidel, or as an eighth-century caliph who founded the city of Baghdad.
Evoking the glory of Arab history, Saddam claims to be leading his people to
new glory.
The
reality looks very different. Iraq is bankrupt, its economy and infrastructure
shattered by years of economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations
following the invasion of Kuwait.
Saddam
Hussein remains largely isolated from his people, keeping the company of a
diminishing circle of trusted advisers - largely drawn from his close family or
from the extended clan based around the town of Takrit, north of Baghdad.
The
path to power
The
Iraqi president was born in a village just outside Takrit in April 1937. In his
teenage years, he immersed himself in the anti-British and anti-Western
atmosphere of the day. At college in Baghdad he joined the Baath party.
After
the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958, Saddam connived in a plot to kill the
prime minister, Abdel-Karim Qassem. But the conspiracy was discovered, and
Saddam fled the country.
In
1963, with the Baath party in control in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein returned home
and began jostling for a position of influence. During this period he married
his cousin Sajida. They later had two sons and three daughters.
Appearing on New Year's day 2001
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But
within months, the Baath party had been overthrown and he was jailed, remaining
there until the party returned to power in a coup in July 1968. Showing
ruthless determination that was to become a hallmark of his leadership, Saddam
Hussein gained a position on the ruling Revolutionary Command Council.
For
years he was the power behind the ailing figure of the president, Ahmed Hassan
Bakr. In 1979, he achieved his ambition of becoming head of state. The new
president started as he intended to go on - putting to death dozens of his
rivals.
Holding
together a disparate nation
President
Saddam Hussein might defend his autocratic style of leadership by arguing that
nothing else could have kept such a vast and diverse nation united.
And,
for all that Saddam Hussein is criticised and reviled, his opponents have not
been able to nominate anyone else who might hold Iraq together - with its Kurds
in the north, Sunni Muslims in the centre and Shi'ia in the south. What the
outside world calls terror, Saddam calls expediency.
The Kurds were persecuted by the Iraqi
regime
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Some
years ago a European interviewer nervously quoted reports that the Baghdad
authorities might, on occasions, have tortured and perhaps even killed
opponents of the regime.
Was
this true? Saddam Hussein was not offended. Rather, he seemed surprised by the
naivete of the question. "Of course," he replied. "What do you
expect if they oppose the regime?"
But
his tactic of imposing his authority by terror has gone far beyond the
occasional arrest and execution of opponents. In attempts to suppress the
Kurds, for example, he has systematically used chemical weapons. And in putting
down a rebellion of Shi'ia in the south he has razed towns to the ground and
drained marshland.
Not
that you would recognise the figure of a tyrant in the portraits that adorn
every building and street corner in Iraq.
Here
you see Saddam, usually smiling benevolently, in a variety of guises and poses
- in military uniform, say, or in traditional ethnic dress, or tweed cap and
sports jacket; he might be surrounded by his family or be seen jiggling a young
child on his knee - the would-be father-figure of the Iraqi nation.
A
question of judgement
The
fiction of Saddam Hussein as a benevolent ruler was exposed by two major and
catastrophic miscalculations of foreign policy for which his country and his
people have paid dearly.
His son was Uday was injured in an attack
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In
1980, Saddam thought he saw an opportunity for glory - to put Iraq at the
forefront of the Arab world. 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.
Still,
with enormous oil reserves, Iraq seemed to have the potential to make a swift
recovery. An increase in oil prices, Saddam Hussein surmised, would speed up
the country's revival still more.
Frustrated
by his failure to achieve agreement on a price rise by conventional means, the
Iraqi president allowed his long-harboured resentment against Kuwait to get the
better of him.
On
2 August 1990, he made another costly blunder by ordering his army into the
neighbouring Gulf state.
Fighting
qualities
In
the months that led up to the war of 1991, Saddam Hussein displayed qualities
that still make him both adored and hated in the Arab world.
On
the streets of Arab cities he is admired as a leader who has dared to defy and
challenge Israel and the West, a symbol of Arab steadfastness in the face of
Western aggression.
At
the same time, Saddam is feared as a vicious dictator who threatens the
security of the Gulf region as a whole.
With
his older and favourite son Uday crippled in an assassination attempt, his
younger son Qusay now controls the elite Revolutionary Guards and the Special
Forces which guarantee the president's grip on power.
Gulf
states and Western countries alike have come to realise that his grip is
stronger than it seems - and stronger by far than his grasp of reality often
appears to be.
He
insists that the 1991 Gulf War, which he famously described as the
Mother-of-All-Battles, ended in victory for Iraq.
By
the same token, Saddam boasts that Iraq can shrug off any Western military
attack. The Iraqi people have no choice but to nod in agreement.
So
it will go on until the moment comes for bombastic slogans to be replaced by a
succinct epitaph to one of the most infamous dictators of the century. For the
overwhelming majority of Iraqis, that moment can not come too soon.
The only negotiable road to global peace
and cooperation goes by way of the United Nations. Mr Annan has been
pre-eminent in bringing new life to the organisation 
