Saddam's Secrets Read online

  But who was checking to see whether it was seventy thousand barrels or two hundred thousand barrels going out? At best, there would be two or three men standing there counting the trucks coming across the border. But if the driver were to strike up a conversation and along the way give the men ten thousand dollars or twenty thousand dollars to look the other way, the monitors would quickly forget how many it was supposed to be and let all the trucks pass on through. And the profits from the sale of contraband oil went right back to Saddam. This was common practice throughout the nineties.

  I’ve heard many stories about how oil was sold at the docks in some of these countries. Saddam would sell it to the Europeans, and in turn they would send him electrical appliances, porcelain toilets with solid gold handles, and the finest Italian marble for building more palaces. If you go to any of the new palaces built since 1991—as many as sixty were built during the time of sanctions—you will see all these things. And then ask yourself, how did all this Italian marble and these expensive gold fixtures get here?

  Returning to Abnormal

  Saddam was slowed but not stopped by sanctions, and the Saddamists came back as strong as ever. Before long everything was just as it had been before the war. When the Americans left, they turned everything over to the United Nations, and the U.N. officials we saw were uniformly corrupt. They were selling the food and medical supplies that were supposed to be given to the people.

  His greed was so great that Saddam would take the grain and the emergency supplies purchased under sanctions and sell it to Iraqi merchants, and then he would give them permission to resell it abroad. Large amounts of money were changing hands all the time. And millions of barrels of Iraqi oil were smuggled out of the country in the same way.

  The young, the old, and the poor of Iraq suffered enormously during this time, and the combination of high inflation, the lack of medical care, and the economic impact of all these things on the job market led to high unemployment and, as a result, the deaths of many, many people. The Oil-for-Food program may have kept a few people alive, but it was an ineffective and unmanageable system, and the world would soon discover that it was also a system that was contaminated by corruption.

  The program was designed by the U.N. to be operated through an escrow account managed by the French-based international banking consortium of BNP Paribas. The bank was authorized to receive all proceeds from the sale of Iraqi oil and gas. These funds were then kept in escrow to be used in making payments for humanitarian supplies and other items specifically licensed by the United States Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. These payments could only be made from the BNP account to suppliers who presented letters-of-credit or coupons that met the terms and conditions of the U.N. sanctions regulations. But, as the scandal that unfolded in 2002 quickly revealed, the program was being manipulated by corrupt officials on both ends.

  There were bribes, kickbacks, or unauthorized commissions in virtually every transaction under the program, and revenues that were designated to aid the people simply never reached them. According to a report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), as many as five thousand Iraqi children a month were dying from diarrhea, pneumonia, breathing problems, and malnutrition as a direct result of the economic sanctions imposed on our country.

  Even if the actual figures were half that, it was still a tragedy. Under U.N. regulations Iraq was allowed to sell $5.26 billion worth of oil every six months in order to purchase food and medicine, but most of that money never made it to the people, and that was another source of the suffering we endured. Economic sanctions cut commercial revenues in Iraq by as much as 90 percent, and whatever profits were made through normal trade flowed directly into the coffers of Saddam and his family. And all Iraqis suffered as a result.

  Overlooking Differences

  If the world thought the hostility between Iran and Iraq was a buffer against illegal trading between these old enemies, they were dead wrong. There was nothing separating the two countries, and there was no one to stop Saddam’s tankers from going back and forth across the border. From time to time we would hear that American satellites had spotted trucks going across the border into Iran. Alarms would go off in Europe and America, but there was no way of knowing whether those trucks were carrying food or machinery or contraband; in any event, nothing happened to stop the two countries from trading illegally.

  For the entire twelve years between 1991 and 2003, Saddam was buying and selling and making huge profits. The black market was thriving in both Iraq and Iran, and despite their long history of hostility, these two countries became active trading partners. When large amounts of money are involved, even the worst enemies can manage to behave as friends. In particular, the sons of wealthy families in Iraq were in regular contact with the sons of wealthy families in Iran, and they did a huge business back and forth. Chief among these, of course, were the two corrupt and wicked sons of Saddam who were making, literally, billions of dollars on the black market.

  Millions of barrels of oil were shipped to the United Arab Emirates, and from there they went around the world. Even when the oil was being sold for only a few dollars per barrel, it was still enough to make Saddam Hussein one of the richest men in the world. He had bank accounts in Europe and the Middle East, and his personal wealth—which was in fact the wealth he had stolen from the Iraqi people—was truly staggering.

  The sons of Saddam, especially Uday, would play with the value of currency in Iraq in order to make more money for themselves. For example, Uday would buy all the U.S. dollars he could get his hands on. He bought them from banks, businesses, and exchange services, and he would keep them out of circulation so that the value of the dollar would rise to anywhere from five hundred to two thousand dinars per dollar. Before long the people would panic, and they would start bringing all their money to the bank, and they would exchange thousands, even millions, of dollars so that they wouldn’t lose the value of their cash. But as soon as this happened, Uday would dump all those dollars back on the market, buying millions of dinars and virtually bankrupting everyone who had any money at risk.

  For their own personal profit, these men were willing to throw the entire Iraqi economy into turmoil. Today, thanks to the new administration and systems put in place by the Americans, the dollar is worth 1,450 dinars, and it’s not moving at all. This gives our currency great stability. People aren’t worried anymore, and they all know just how much money they have. In the new government, no one is playing with our currency for profit. If you want dinars, you can have them. If you want dollars or English pounds, you can have those too. This has been excellent for Iraq. But under Saddam, we were never secure. We never knew if we could survive from one day to the next. Just imagine what kind of life it was, trying to survive under those conditions.

  Rewarding Incompetence

  And what did the Baath Party do for Iraq? For one thing, the Baath Party made certain that those who were the most capable were never allowed to become leaders. In every area it was those with second- and third-level skills, who happened to be members of the Baath Party, who were always put in charge. The main reason was because these people would do whatever Saddam wanted them to do without question. And the result was that Iraq continued to slide backward while the rest of the world was moving forward.

  Not only was the nation going backward, but we had been pushed into fighting three major wars that consumed any gains we might have made if we had simply been able to pursue our own goals peacefully. In the process, Saddam drained the wealth of Iraq. There we were, a country roughly the size of California, with an army of 6,400 tanks. Compare that to Great Britain, which has so much more at stake, and they only have about 950 tanks altogether.

  There is a saying that if you want to understand what’s most important to a man, look at where he spends his money. If you want to know what was important to Saddam, look at where he spent the wealth of Iraq. Tanks, missiles, bombs, guns, and explosives�
�not to mention the millions he poured into the technology and technicians he needed for producing weapons of mass destruction. We were starving and he was buying weapons! And thanks to the corruption of the Baath Party, they were putting our resources into the hands of the least qualified people.

  As a general in the air force, I worked with highly specialized equipment. When we bought missiles for our fighters, such as the French Exocet, we had to pay $1.2 million for each one. When we bought a new jet fighter, we had to pay $21 million each. But if we put a second-rate pilot in charge of that aircraft, we soon found out that he didn’t have the skill or the courage to fly it, and he would eject at the first sign of trouble. So then what happened to that big investment?

  On one occasion I received a call from Tammuz Air Base near Habbaniya, in the south, telling me that one of our pilots had ejected and crashed his plane in the desert. When I asked which aircraft he was flying, I realized that the plane he was in had been flown less than eight hours. It was a brand-new Sukhoi, which was a beautiful Russian-made fighter. So when I got to the base, I told the commander, Gen. Saad, “Round up everybody. I want to talk to them.”

  They all came, and there were about five hundred of them from eight separate squadrons: pilots, crews, mechanics, radar operators, ground personnel, administrators, and many others. When I came into the room, I said, “Which one of you is the pilot who ejected?” A young first lieutenant raised his hand and said, “It was me, sir. I ejected.” So I said, “Come here.” He walked up to the front of the room and I said, “What was your mission, and what was your position in the formation?”

  He said, “Sir, I was number four. Numbers one and two took off, and, according to procedure, they were to pull high so that when number three and I took off at low level under them we wouldn’t get hit by the jet wash. But one and two didn’t go high enough, so when I took off I hit the jet wash of number two and my aircraft became unstable. I started losing control, so I ejected.”

  The air base where this happened is very near Habbaniya Lake, where there is a beautiful resort built several years ago by the French. When that pilot ejected, his plane headed straight for the resort, and if it hadn’t somehow veered away on its own, by the grace of God, many people would have been killed. And the reason would have been because this stupid boy thought the world was ending. He didn’t think twice about destroying a $20 million jet aircraft that had flown less than eight hours.

  Why is this important? Because if you put an unqualified person in charge of something that you value highly, you will be putting everything at risk. And if you do this long enough, sooner or later everything of value will be destroyed by incompetent people. An airplane could care less whether the pilot is British or American or Iraqi. All that matters is that the pilot is competent and properly trained to operate the equipment as it was designed to be used. But a fool can destroy the best fighter in the air force in a matter of minutes.

  Saddam built a military with more than 1,000 aircraft, 6,400 tanks, and thousands of missiles of every kind, from laser-guided rockets to the new energy bombs; each one of them was worth more than a million dollars. Such weapons in the hands of a man like Saddam Hussein could drain the entire wealth of the country. Why? Because this man wanted to be big. He wanted to be a hero, to conquer, and to be feared. And in the process he robbed the people, terrified them, and made them poor.

  He destabilized the entire region and made his country the enemy of the world. Who would do such a thing? A politician must have good common sense. At the very least he should want to improve the prosperity of the people, but Saddam never cared in the least for how the people of Iraq were actually living. He didn’t know the people, and he didn’t care what happened to us.

  An Empire Built on Sand

  In one of my assignments as an air force commander, I was put in charge of six squadrons of jet fighters. Each squadron had about thirty pilots, so I was responsible for 180 pilots and their aircraft. I had trained some of them and given them their solo flights, but of course I didn’t know them all. So I watched them, and in time I discovered who the good pilots were, who the leaders were, who followed orders, and who did not. I soon knew who to promote and who to hold back, because my goal was to have the best pilots and the best squadrons not just in the air force but in the whole Middle East.

  But this was never the policy in Iraq. Because of the low standards of the Baathis, leaders in all fields and all disciplines were selected on the basis of loyalty to the party, and I believe they actually preferred to have less competent people in key positions. Consequently, the incompetent people who were in charge would make sure that no one who was genuinely competent would ever be allowed to rise.

  I remember a conversation that took place in San Antonio, Texas, in 1965, when I was in training at Randolph and Lackland Air Force Bases. There was an officer in the class named Wing Commander Wood who was from New Zealand. I didn’t know him very well, but apparently he had been watching me for some time, and one day he came up to me and said, “Georges, I like the way you fly. You’re a good pilot, and the flight instructors are saying good things about you. But there’s something I’d like to know.” So I said, “Sure, Wood. Ask me anything. What is it?” So he said, “Is it still like it used to be in Iraq, where anyone who’s doing a good job and advancing in his career, you stop him and pull him back?”

  I said, “How did you know that?” He knew what he was talking about because that’s exactly the way things were done in my country. He said, “I served in the Royal Air Force in Habbaniya, Iraq, for seven years. We used to have some very good people, but as soon as they would start doing a good job, your people would pull them back to keep them from advancing.”

  I said, “Yes, I’m sorry to say you’re right, only now it’s worse. They don’t just stop him; they slap him around and say, ‘Why are you working so hard? You’re not going anywhere!’ ” And this pilot said to me, “I was afraid of that, and I’m sorry to hear it. Because, even though you’re a very good pilot, you’ll never be advanced.”

  He was right, but I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t just pilots who were being held back. My country was destroyed—politically, militarily, commercially, and especially in the leadership of the government—because of the Baath Party and their bad policies. Saddam Hussein was an artist in his ability to destroy not just the country but even the party that supported him. He was not alone though. His allies were doing a pretty good job of destroying things on their own.

  The nation of Iraq, like all those in the Middle East or elsewhere that operate in an atmosphere of corruption, had been weakened by hatred, suspicion, and fear—all the worst emotions. This was a shame because Iraq has so many natural resources and we’ve had so many opportunities to achieve great things. But for a time, the country fell into the hands of the wrong men and we paid dearly for that. But thank God, the structure erected by Saddam and the Baathis has collapsed, and Saddam is gone—because it was an empire built on shifting sands. And as the Bible tells us, only a house built on solid rock can stand.

  Taking a Demotion

  The system in Iraq was so corrupt that even acts of benevolence had disastrous effects. Poor and incompetent leadership combined with Saddam’s military adventurism and confiscation of our national treasure had been driving the nation into deep financial trouble for years. But when sanctions began in the mid-1990s, the economy suddenly went into freefall. When Saddam saw what was happening, he decided to intervene by giving money to party members so they could survive in those difficult times. Of course, he controlled all the oil revenues and the entire wealth of the nation, and he could use it however he pleased. So he created a bonus program, the Makrama, meaning “the gift of the president.”

  Originally this was mainly a way for Saddam to solidify his power base, but before long it became a necessity for millions of Iraqis. Inflation was eating us alive, and there was no way to increase salaries enough to make up for the difference. But consider wha
t happened to those like me who weren’t party members. In the late eighties, my salary as an air force general was 1,000 dinars per month, which was about $3,000 U.S.—because the dinar at that time was worth three American dollars. That was a good salary in Iraq, but in 1995 when inflation went so high, 3,000 Iraqi dinars was only worth about one American dollar. This meant that my salary, which had been worth $3,000, was suddenly worth just 30 cents.

  On paper, salaries continued to increase, and by 1998 a general’s salary was shown as 80,000 dinars per month—eighty times my salary a decade earlier—but in reality it was the equivalent of only $40 U.S., and no one could live on that. If you were a loyal party member, you would receive “the gift of the president,” which could vary from a half million to a million and a half dinars per household. So while you were receiving just $40 in your pay envelope each month, “the gift” could come to $2,000 to $3,000 or more every month.

  So what did this mean to the country? It meant that suddenly the people’s loyalty was no longer to the government or the military or their employers but to Saddam Hussein, who held their lives, their welfare, and their future in his hands. The “gift of the president” could be ten to twenty times the amount of your salary, and it varied based on your position and rank. If your rank increased, the gift also increased, and it could reach as high as 10 million dinars every month, which was about $5,000.