Saddam's Secrets Page 9
But it didn’t stop there. Saddam also insisted that, even though his title was deputy to the president, he was to be equal to the president and he would sign all official documents. If you wanted to congratulate the president, you didn’t just congratulate Al-Bakr; you had to say congratulations to President Al-Bakr and his distinguished deputy, Saddam Hussein. So it was two-for-one—that’s what many people called it. Two presidents for one, and it lasted from 1968 until 1979 when Saddam finally told Al-Bakr that if he wanted to live he would have to leave. Of course, Al-Bakr knew Saddam well enough by this time, so he left immediately.
After Al-Bakr was gone, the practice of two-for-one suddenly ended. Saddam made himself president and prime minister and only chose weak deputies to work for him. His purpose was to grow bigger and bigger while everyone else grew smaller and smaller. Before long he had made himself the absolute dictator of Iraq, and no one dared to resist him because they knew he was a ruthless killer. And this is how Saddam grew very large while the entire nation continued to shrink.
Worst of all, he drained the wealth of the country for his palaces, his personal pleasures, and his own power. He expanded the military to 6,400 tanks, 40 regiments of artillery, more than 1,000 combat aircraft, and sophisticated weapons for all the branches of the military, in addition to his sixty-eight luxurious palaces around the country. He made sure that all the revenue from the oil fields flowed to him, and he didn’t hesitate to use the nation’s wealth to build more and more rockets equipped with chemical weapons.
Saddam was also attempting to build sophisticated nuclear weapons, and while this was a more difficult task for him because of the intense scrutiny from Europe, America, and the United Nations, he did manage to bring in many nuclear scientists. I believe he would have been successful in manufacturing and mounting nuclear warheads on Iraqi missiles if he had not been deterred, first by the Gulf War, and finally by Operation Iraqi Freedom.
No Moral Limits
Saddam’s ambition was so enormous he always believed that he could bluff his way through and do whatever he wanted to do. When he bought SCUD missiles, he was only permitted to buy SCUDs with a range of 220 miles. But this made him very angry because he wanted SCUDs with a range of 440 miles. So he created his own organization, called Military Industries, and he brought in the top scientists and engineers—not only from Iraq, but from Europe and many places in the Middle East—to help him create an arsenal of weapons with which he could conquer the entire region.
The task was to develop new weapons and to modify existing weapons to make them either more powerful or with greater range. For example, if we had an aircraft with a range of only 250 miles, then he would insist on giving them a range of 500 miles. If we had SCUDs that would only go 200 miles, he would say, “That won’t even reach Israel! Make it bigger!” And then he would do two things: first, he would have the engineers double the size of the fuel tanks so the rocket could go 500 miles, and, second, he had them build launch facilities on the western border of Iraq, which put them 300 miles closer to the target. At that point he had all the range he needed and he could use those missiles anywhere he liked.
The secret to all of this was money, and Saddam used money to buy, steal, and bribe his way to greater and greater power. If he needed scientists with a certain type of expertise, he would buy them. Whether they were in America or France or Germany, that was no problem. He had millions of dollars to work with, and he found that even the best scientists and technicians had their price. And that wasn’t all, of course. If his unscrupulous and dissolute son, Uday, wanted to have a big party with a beautiful woman, he would bring her to Iraq and give her a coupon for a million barrels of oil. If she wasn’t beautiful enough, then she would bring two or three others with her who were very beautiful. Like their father, Uday and Qusay used the wealth of the country as if it were all their own. It was as if Iraq was their personal playground. They were the owners, and the Iraqi people were their servants.
There were many times when people tried to kill Saddam, but he was cunning, and he was always surrounded by several layers of security. One was the party. Another was the military, and especially his own palace guards, the Republican Brigades. He had a special unit of bodyguards, very much like the praetorian guards in Roman times. Their only duty was to protect this man. Most of them were Tikritis from Saddam’s own city, and they were absolutely corrupt.
Abd Hamoud, who was Saddam’s chief bodyguard, was not a regular officer. He was a warrant officer. One of the Tikritis, a lawyer named Fares, fired Abd Hamoud from his job because he was so bad at it. So Abd Hamoud went to the palace and begged Saddam for a place. A short time after that, they made him a lieutenant in the guards, and from there they promoted him to three-star general in charge of the Republican Brigades and much more. In that position he had the right to decide who could see Saddam and who could not, and he would often block ministers, politicians, military officers, or foreign officials whenever he liked. And this man, like his master, recognized no moral limits.
The Baath Underground
What you had to know in Iraq in those days was that the Baath Party was everywhere and you never knew who might turn out to be a party operative. A friend once told me that while he was in medical college in Baghdad, there was one particular janitor who always seemed to be in the way. My friend tried to avoid him, but the rude and troublesome janitor was always there. One day when this medical student was in the sixth and final year of his studies, the janitor stopped him in the hallway and said, “Son, I don’t like the way you look at me.” The young man said, “Why do you say that? I’m very busy. I’m a student.” And the janitor said, “Yes, but you had better remember that it’s not the dean who will see that you graduate. I’m the party man. If I say you graduate, you graduate. If I say you fail, you fail.”
Suddenly my friend realized that this man was the senior member of the Baath Party at the college, and this janitor was superior to the dean and the entire faculty. Just imagine such a system. When I heard this, I knew that something of the sort could happen but I never imagined that it had gotten to the point that a janitor would have the authority to decide the future of medical students and their professors.
Suddenly the student understood that in Iraq it was the janitor who had the power of life and death over his future medical career. And this is a perfect illustration of the system in Iraq at that time. Even in the military, it was often a warrant officer or an enlisted man who would have the authority to say who was promoted and who was passed over, even among our highest-ranking officers. In the Baath Party, it didn’t matter what rank you held or how capable you were. All that mattered was that you proved your loyalty to the party.
As an air vice marshal and a general officer, I often thought about the human aspects of my job. A general may be very senior, and he may have spent his entire life gaining leadership experience and knowledge of his profession, but he is still a soldier. He may be above his men in rank and authority, but he is never above them in human terms. There’s a fine line between the duty to command men in combat—knowing in some cases that you may be sending them to their deaths—and the duty to respect those soldiers, sailors, and airmen as human beings at all times. I’m sure that every commander worth his rank has had such thoughts at one time or another.
But then to risk that important relationship by empowering some unskilled laborer, giving them authority to make critical decisions about careers and assignments, is sheer madness. An army is not a political organization. It is an instrument of the political and diplomatic arms of government, equipped to protect and defend the interests of the nation. But in Saddam’s Iraq, it was the other way around. In time the army became completely politicized and, I would also have to say, useless.
Furthermore, Saddam created what he called the Popular Army. He wanted the entire nation to be militarized. Even women and children were supposed to learn how to fight and how to carry out Saddam’s orders. Just imagine the p
erversity of that—a nation of 27 million people who were being transformed into a military and political organization, solely to satisfy the power lust and greed of the president.
This is not how it works in civilized nations. The best way to protect a nation from attack by foreign aggressors is to have a sophisticated political and diplomatic apparatus with officers who are very good at defusing tense situations before they become volatile. Then, knowing that they have a well-trained and well-equipped military when all else fails, the ministers, ambassadors, and the chief executive of the nation are able to negotiate in good faith and with confidence. The worst kind of government, however, is one that is all military and all violence, constantly forcing its will on the people and on its neighbors through intimidation. I’m sad to say this was exactly the kind of government we had under Saddam.
In Iraq, there was no foreign service as you know it in America and the free world. There was only the Mukhabbarat, which was the civil intelligence service. It was like the CIA and the FBI combined, with the authority not only to gather information on citizens but also to detain and punish citizens if they were suspected of disloyalty or treason. This meant that there was no one in our foreign service, internal or external (meaning in Iraq or in our foreign embassies around the world) who was not a complete Mukhabbarat. This is why Saddam was able to order the Iraqi ambassador to Kuwait to assassinate Hardan al-Tikriti: because the ambassador was, first and foremost, a spy and an agent of the Mukhabbarat.
Because of these policies, Saddam created what had to be the worst foreign service in the entire world, because none of our ambassadors were foreign service officers; they were all spies. Of course, every embassy has intelligence officers working in it; but the embassy should not be run by spies. In some cases the person legally responsible for foreign intelligence will be the military attaché. He’s a diplomat, but basically he’s a spy with the title of military attaché. And in any event, he works for the ambassador, who is never a military or political figure but usually a distinguished citizen chosen as an ambassador of goodwill and a spokesman for his country. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to be.
Border Troubles
There are two things I can say about Saddam Hussein, because I knew the man. First, he was an artist in understanding the nature of power and how to exploit other people to accomplish his purposes. He knew how to manipulate them, pitting one against the other, and how to create an atmosphere of chaos in which he was the only source of resolution and order. And second, he was a genius at doing evil. He was cunning and brutal, and he had enormous skill in doing the most wicked things you can imagine.
Sometimes he would give power to the Baath Party by allowing them to have special favors or privileges. At other times he would take power away from them and give it to the military. Then when it was convenient, he would give power to the people themselves, always playing one against the other. If he ever thought the army was getting to be too powerful, he would arouse the people and the party against the military. But if he felt the party was becoming too powerful, he would stir up the army and the nation against the party. By this kind of manipulation, he was able to make sure that he alone would hold the power of government.
From 1968 to 1979, Saddam was, technically at least, the deputy to Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. In fact, he made himself the co-president and Al-Bakr could do nothing without him. If Al-Bakr signed any kind of executive order, you can be sure there would be a paragraph saying that it was being done through the wise administration of the esteemed deputy prime minister, Saddam Hussein.
When Saddam came to power on his own in 1979, by overthrowing Al-Bakr, he was insuring that he would be able to wield unlimited power without interference. At about the same time, however, the nation of Iran was undergoing a major revolution in which the monarch, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was toppled and sent into exile. The two revolutions, in Iran and Iraq, really have nothing to do with each other except the coincidence of timing.
However, Saddam was frightened that the unrest in Iran, which was being fomented by the radical cleric, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, from his base in Paris, might spill over into his country. As in Iraq, the majority population in Iran is Shia, and Saddam was concerned that a Shia rebellion in Iran could lead to rebellion in Iraq as well.
When I was in a position to advise the president on military matters, I would always tell him, “Don’t fight Iran. It’s not worth it.” But I think there was always something in the back of his mind, and he was worried that if the Islamic fanaticism in Iran came to Iraq, it would be very bad for him. In fact, tapes of violent sermons by radical clerics were coming in from Iran by the hundreds, and these were being circulated among the Shia population in the south. They were calling for an Islamic revolution throughout the region. So Saddam decided that he would do whatever it took to stamp out that kind of thinking, and I believe that’s one reason why there was so much brutal repression of the Shia during his thirty years in office.
By 1980, the Islamic Dahwa (which was the political arm of the Islamist movement) was making trouble for Saddam, and he could see that sooner or later they would try to force him out of power and take over the government. When he came to that conclusion, Saddam knew that if he didn’t take dramatic action against them he could lose everything. That’s when he shocked the nation and the entire Arab world by ordering the assassination of the Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr, along with his sister, Amina, who was known as a civil rights activist and defender of women’s rights.
They were killed on April 8, 1980, and this was a tremendous shock to the people. But Saddam had made his point, and the people knew exactly what it meant: no one, not even a grand ayatollah, could stand in the way of this man. Saddam would not allow anything or anyone to cross him or to threaten his power.
The ayatollah was a Shia, and the Shia people in the south of Iraq understood that the assassinations were a message to them from Saddam. Some of the Shia leaders wanted to come against him, and they made an effort to join forces with the Shiites in Iran. But when Saddam got news of this, he decided to attack first and ask questions later, and I believe that’s how the Iran-Iraq War actually began.
CHAPTER 3
BETRAYAL AND REVENGE
In 1978 I began preparing for promotion to general, and in 1980 I was finally given my first star. Before that we had a Staff College for training senior officers, but we didn’t have the War College or the National Defense College. The Staff College teaches officers from the rank of major how to handle routine staff duties and how to perform as an officer in a division. There are many brigades, divisions, corps, and other components in an army, as well as civilians in high-level leadership roles. To prepare leaders at this level there must be a war college and a national defense college to train officers in the scope and complexity of all these units.
I taught all three military colleges for ten years, yet there was only one man with the rank of general who was not allowed to attend the National Defense College or receive the degrees: General Georges Sada. And the reason was because I was not a member of the Baath Party. They said my knowledge was good enough and I was even qualified enough to give the lectures; but I was never allowed to attend the National Defense College myself. So I taught the officers who did attend.
Students attending the National Defense College (NDC) had already earned the equivalent of a master’s degree in the Staff College, and at the end of their program at the NDC they would receive the equivalent of a doctorate in military science. Consequently, the policy was that, because of the high level of the students, instructors ought to be the highest level officers in each service. In other words, to learn about the structures, tactics, and strategies of the air force, the instructor ought to be the commanding general of the air force.
But the session titled “The Lecture of the Air Chief” was never given by the air chief, because it would have been too embarrassing for him. Students at that level ask questions, and the lect
urer must be capable of answering them. He must be able to give an assessment of the day-to-day air threat in each sector of operations as well as the state of military readiness. And if the instructor gives his students that information, they may well ask him how to deal with the threat, and the instructor had better know the answers.
But our air chiefs were so afraid they wouldn’t be able to answer the questions that they never gave the lectures. Instead, they said, “Let Georges do it.” And of course I did it, for three air chiefs: Muhammed Jassam, Hamid Shaiban, and Muzahim Hassan al-Tikriti, who is now in prison. Frankly, I loved doing it and the students loved my lectures. They called for me to give the lectures because I always motivated them.
Teaching at this level is an art. You have to keep the students engaged, but you also have to know how to challenge them and get them to participate in the discussion. In the War College and the National Defense College, it’s not just the teacher who gives rewards to the students, but the students give rewards to the teachers. At the end of each course, the students fill out evaluations for the teacher, who is called the Director of Staff (DS). So I taught the air studies for all the services, air force, navy, and army—as well as civilians in ministry-level positions, and not only for Iraqis but for students from all the Arab countries. They would come to study in Iraq because our standards were very high, and they were well recognized by the Americans and the British as well. In fact, our Staff College was originally organized by the British in 1929.
Knowing the Enemy
Once in 1990, it came time for Gen. Muzahim to teach these subjects, and he knew he was supposed to do it. But copies of the program for the War College are sent around to all the high-ranking officials, from the president and minister of defense on down. They can see who’s scheduled to give the lectures on a particular topic, and then they can decide whether or not they want to come and hear what’s being said.