NARRATOR: Allied forces advanced deeper into
occupied Kuwait today, pounding Iraqi Republican
Guard positions and even entering Kuwait City.
Thousands more Iraqi soldiers surrendered
to the allies. But Saddam Hussein continues
to defend himself, even as his last ditch
efforts to withdraw with honor are rebuffed.
President GEORGE BUSH: He is trying to save
the remnants of power and control in the Middle
East by every means possible. And here too,
Saddam Hussein will fail.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE: Saddam Hussein's
rise to absolute power. Why has he risked
his life and regime by confronting the West?
HISHAM MELHEM, Lebanese Journalist: He is
wrapping himself in probably the most important
thing in Islamic history: to stand up for
a cause, to fight knowing in advance that
you might lose.
ANNOUNCER: Is he in fact a shrewd tactician,
gambling on his own political survival?
Dr. JERROLD M. POST, Political Psychologist,
George Washington University: This man is
the quintessential survivor. You must remember
that.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE, correspondent
Hodding Carter examines "The Mind of Hussein."
NARRATOR: In Iraq, Saddam Hussein has been
held in fear and adulation. In the West, he's
become the very embodiment of evil.
President BUSH: Eyewitness accounts of the
cruel and senseless suffering endured by the
people of Kuwait -- summary executions, routine
torture -- Hitler revisited.
NARRATOR: Others see him as a cold and calculating
politician.
Dr. CHARLES TRIPP, Middle East Scholar: I
think there's much more to be said, if one
wants to make comparisons, to compare him
to someone like Stalin, who he publicly admires,
not for Marxist ideology but really for Stalin's
grasp of party organization, for the ruthlessness
of the use of force, and for his determination
to pursue his goals, come what may.
SAMI RAHMAN, Former Iraqi Minister: Some people
who have called him mad don't know anything
about him, don't know anything about the situation.
He is a very cold calculator, but he believes
very much in using force to impose his will.
NARRATOR: And a psychiatrist who has analyzed
him for the U.S. government agrees that Saddam
is not insane.
Dr. JERROLD M. POST, Political Psychologist,
George Washington University: Saddam is not
crazy. He has the most dangerous personality
configuration, what we call "malignant narcissism,"
such extreme self-absorption, he has no concern
for the pain or suffering of others, a paranoid
outlook, no constraint of conscience and will
use whatever aggression is necessary in pursuit
of his own Messianic drives.
NARRATOR: Good evening. I'm Hodding Carter.
Saddam Hussein is, in one respect, no mystery.
Thug and patriot, nationalist and self-serving
tyrant, his type can be found around the world.
But Saddam Hussein is also unique, emerging
from a specific time and place. Over the past
several weeks, with BBC reporter John Ware,
we've talked to people who grew up with Saddam,
worked with him, were defeated by him, and
who have studied him. With their help, we'll
try to determine what drove him into a seemingly
suicidal conflict with the world's greatest
military power. And as he bargains over withdrawal,
what he still hopes to gain from the war.
To answer those questions is to tell the story
of his life.
April 28th is Saddam Hussein's birthday. In
Iraq it is a national holiday. While Saddam
is feared and hated by many Iraqis, he has
also enjoyed a genuine popularity. He has
not only created a personality cult, but his
control of the country is total.
Dr. TAHSIN MUALLAH, former Ba'ath Party Leader:
There is no government. There is one person.
There is no budget at all. There's no budget
decided by a government. It is one person
who decides to pay there or pay there or pay
there. So every bit of Iraqi incomes go to
Saddam Hussein and when he do anything, his
system say, "This is a gift from the president."
So they make any person feel that even his
daily living is a gift from his president.
Hafizabu Allah, God protects him, because
he's giving us food, giving us water, giving
us air to breathe, giving us sky to live under.
So everything is a gift from that one person.
NARRATOR: Saddam Hussein's life started in
a small village much like this. It's a part
of his populist appeal. He's at home squatting
with peasants. His background is hazy, rewritten
by official biographers. It is known that
he was born in 1937 and left home at an early
age. He came to Baghdad when he was 10 years
old to live with his uncle and to seek an
education. He apparently lived up to the Arabic
translation of his name -- Saddam, "the one
who confronts." It's said he arrived in the
Iraqi capital with a gun.
FOUAD MATAR, Official Hussein Biographer:
[through interpreter] As a child, Saddam Hussein
used to see lots of guns hanging on the walls
at his home. In those days, an Iraqi would
boast of having a gun or dagger. If you wanted
to be seen as a strong man, you had to carry
a gun. He saw the gun as a way of showing
his strength.
NARRATOR: At school the teenage Saddam had
his problems with authority.
Dr. ABDUL WAHAD al-HAKIM, Iraqi Exile: My
headmaster told me that he liked to expel
Saddam from the school. When Saddam hear about
this decision, he came to his, you know, his
headmaster room and threaten him to death.
He said, "I will kill you if you not withdraw
your threat against me to expel me from the
school."
NARRATOR: Saddam's political education as
an Iraqi nationalist began with his Uncle
Khayrallah, who had been jailed for anti-British
activities. He apparently also taught him
about hate. Years later, Saddam would have
printed and distributed one of his uncle's
pamphlets. It was entitled "Three Things God
Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews and
Flies."
HANI al-FEKAIKI, former Ba'ath Party Member:
The main influence on Saddam's personality,
I believe, the hatred against the West, which
was in the '50s and '60s because of the creation
of Israel, because of the prevention of the
Arab unity, because of the domination of the
British on the whole area. This hatred is
still there.
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Just across across the
map to Iraq, another danger spot that Britain
dealt with before it was too late.
NARRATOR: He was born into the cauldron of
post-colonial rule in a land still controlled
by Britain. After World War I, Britain had
redrawn the maps of the Middle East, stitching
Iraq together from several separate pieces.
The British then granted Iraq independence,
but installed a puppet king. In 1941, they
put down a revolt against the monarchy. Iraq
remained a prisoner of the West's will. In
1958, while Iraq's King Faisal was visiting
Britain, another conspiracy to overthrow the
monarchy was under way at home. The coup succeeded.
Its leader was General Abdul Karim Kassem.
One day after the coup, the U.S. sent troops
to the Middle East.
ALFRED L. ATHERTON, Jr., former Assistant
Secretary of State for the Near East: We saw
this as the beginning of a violent revolution
that was going to overturn governments all
the way across the Arab world and we went
in to stabilize it, starting in Beirut.
NARRATOR: President Eisenhower sent the Marines
into Lebanon. Though concerned with the civil
war there, he was motivated primarily by the
Iraqi revolution and the threat of Soviet
influence in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile,
back in Baghdad, Kassem's takeover was also
being opposed by a small underground group
of Arab nationalists called the Ba'ath Party.
Mr. al-FEKAIKI: The Ba'ath Party in the '50s
and even early '60s was a small party, but
it had a wide, very wide support within the
Arab people, who were aiming to liberate the
Arab countries, to unite them in one state
and to liberate Palestine.
Dr. PHEBE MARR, Senior Fellow, National Defense
University: The party started out as a clandestine
party and hence is built on a well-known cell
system. That we know. People in this cell
don't know people in that and so on. But since
the party is also hierarchical, you move up
the party and you're carefully watched. You're
carefully vetted.
NARRATOR: Saddam Hussein was 20 when he joined
the party.
MUSTAFA al-KARADAGHI, former Iraqi Diplomat:
I met him when he was quite young, with another
two Ba'ath fellow. He was very aggressive,
you know? He was talking about how to overthrow
this regime, the Kassem regime, to shoot everybody
and to wipe out and to make the streets of
Baghdad a lake of blood. He used that "lake
of blood" frequently.
NARRATOR: Inspired by Egyptian president Gamel
Nasser's defiance of the British and French
at Suez, Saddam had become a dedicated revolutionary.
He was now drawn into a conspiracy. The Ba'ath
leadership selected him to join a squad to
assassinate Kassem.
Mr. al-FEKAIKI: He was young, strong, brave,
loyal to the party, ready to obey orders and
to kill.
NARRATOR: Saddam's role in the failed assassination
attempt has been dramatized in an Iraqi film.
Saddam himself is portrayed as the fearless
leader of the hit squad. In real life, his
role was smaller.
Dr. MUALLAH: He put himself as the leader
of the group who tried to kill Kassem. He
was the most junior member of the group.
NARRATOR: His doctor remembers Saddam's wound.
Dr. MUALLAH: Oh, it was very superficial wound
to the shin. A bullet just penetrated the
skin and it stopped there in the shin of his
leg. I don't recall whether it was the right
or left leg. And during the night he cut it
by a razor blade and took the bullet out.
So I treated the wound. I cleaned it and dressed
it and that's all.
NARRATOR: Because of the failed coup, Saddam
fled to Cairo. He became a student of law
at the university during a turbulent time.
He apparently never finished a course, caught
up instead in student politics, the Ba'athist
Party in exile and in Egypt's own revolution
under the charismatic Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Nasser's pan-Arabism appealed to the young
Saddam.
Dr. S. SHAIKHLY, former Hussein Economic Adviser:
All Arab nationalists, and that would have
included people of Saddam Hussein's age group,
would have looked at President Nasser both
as a savior and as a model for a future Arab
leader. I would have thought that not only
colored his thinking, but also it must have
colored his inspiration for leadership.
NARRATOR: This coffee shop was a meeting place
for Cairo's political activists in the early
1960s. As a young political refugee, Saddam
amazed the owner by appearing to enjoy near-diplomatic
status.
HUSSEIN MAGID, Caf� Owner: [through interpreter]
He was rowdy with the waiters, rowdy with
the customers, and used to sit by the pavement
and tease the girls. He behaved badly in many
ways. Once he had a fight with some Yemenis.
He brought in an axe and they hit each other.
He had two Iraqis with him. They switched
off the lights. They hit and injured each
other so I called the police, but the police
sided with him because he was under Nasser's
protection.
NARRATOR: Patrons, however, also recall him
as a man who had the quality of a born leader.
He had, they remember, a natural air of authority.
AHMED ABBAS SALEH, former Press Officer, Iraqi
Embassy: We were in the caf� and we heard
some quarrel outside the caf�. When we went,
I found a young man, who was Saddam Hussein,
give order to this factions which fight together
and all of them suddenly stopped the quarrel
and it surprised me very much. And when I
came back to my seat inside the caf�, I
asked my friend about this young man. He told
me it was a very important man. He is representative
of Ba'ath Party in Egypt.
NARRATOR: But in February 1963, events in
Baghdad brought Saddam home. Kassem had been
assassinated by the Ba'athists. To convince
the people on the streets of Kassem's death,
the Ba'athists and their military partners
displayed Kassem's corpse on television. But
nine months later, the Ba'athists themselves
were overthrown by the army. They'd fallen
prey to doctrinaire splits and divisions between
their military and civilian wings. For Saddam,
these were important lessons about power and
how not to lose it.
Dr. MARR: I think he learned the lesson that
it is unwise to share power with other groups.
The Ba'ath in '63 had shared power with the
military. The military out-maneuvered them
and they were forced out of power. The second
lesson he learned from that was to put the
military in the barracks. Get the military
out of political power and put them in the
barracks and he's been remarkably successful
in doing that for a long period of time. Third,
I think he learned from that experience never
to allow splits in the leadership. And this,
I think, is what we call his "paranoia," that
he is unduly suspicious of any thoughts, even,
of dissent or opposition, which must be crushed,
and he's very good at crushing them.
NARRATOR: Suspecting Saddam of subversion,
the military regime jailed him. There he began
to plot the future. He would become a brilliant
and sometimes subtle tactician, but his basic
tactic was the crudest of all: to restore
discipline to the Ba'ath Party through selective
terror.
Mr. al-FEKAIKI: People who were with him in
prison in 1965 told me that he was keen to
read books about Hitler, about Stalin, things
like that, which help him to know how he could
seize power, how could he manage keeping power
in his hand, how he could get rid of his opponent,
things like that.
NARRATOR: In July 1968, the Ba'athists seized
power again, this time under President al-Bakr.
The young Saddam had connections. Bakr was
Saddam's cousin and he entrusted his 31-year-old
relative with the most important job of all:
running the state security apparatus to extinguish
dissent both inside and outside the party.
HASSAN al-ALAWI, Hussein Publicity Chief,
1975-1980: [through interpreter] The curious
thing is that when the Ba'ath Party came to
power, its secret organizations remained secret
even though they no longer needed to be. One
wonders why the party should remain secret
when it's in power. Here we should take into
account the psychology of the leader, Saddam,
a man who's afraid of society, who doesn't
trust his neighbors. These features have left
their mark on Iraq since the Ba'ath Party
came to power. The state doesn't trust its
neighbors. The party organization doesn't
trust its members. The government doesn't
trust its ministers. All this reflects the
psychology of fear and terror in which Saddam
has always lived.
NARRATOR: In 1968, Sami Ali was a journalist
in Baghdad. After publishing secret Ba'ath
documents, he found himself being interrogated
by Saddam Hussein.
SAMI ALI, Journalist: I felt I am in front
of very powerful person. That is the man who
will decide my destiny. He was very severe
and he said, "We are different from the former
regime." He said, "We are going to clean Iraq
from all the weak people, all from unwanted
people, so we have message, we have a plan
to do it and we are going to do it."
NARRATOR: That message was soon delivered
to the Iraqi people. The public came in their
thousands to Liberation Square to witness
the fate of those the Ba'athists claimed had
plotted against them.
Mr. al-KARADAGHI: When we went there, there
were many speakers there. They were speaking
about -- against Zionism, against the traitors,
against -- the policy of Ba'ath government,
what they are going to achieve, what they
are going to wipe out all the traitors inside,
like all those people hanged there. All the
traitor will be hanged.
IRAQI EXILE: You could see the bodies very
closely. These were hung for, by that time,
about four hours on the -- you could see,
because the neck was broken. It had actually
stretched to about one foot long. I myself
in particular, I remember I was pushed right
against one of the hanged bodies. I remember
my head hitting one of the shoes of one of
the hanged men. Up to that time, people could
be critical. They could criticize the government
or statements made by Ba'athist officials,
including the president of that time and Saddam
Hussein, as well. I realized that this can
no longer continue and that we have to be
careful about what we say.
NARRATOR: In the early years of the new Ba'athist
government, 2,000 political opponents were
executed or disappeared at the hands of state
security. Even the man Saddam put in charge
of the service was executed for plotting against
the Ba'athists. Saddam then restructured the
security operations.
ELAINE SCIOLINO, The New York Times: Saddam
was very instrumental in developing the security
apparatus for the regime and used it not only
as a way to provide the regime with intelligence
and prevent coup plots, but also to purge
the regime one by one of its enemies and of
his enemies, so that Saddam was able to build
a power base for himself. And it took him
probably about a year and a half before Saddam
really emerged as the number two man behind
Bakr, through a series of systematic purges
and consolidation of power.
NARRATOR: He created three separate networks:
the internal state security service, the "AMN,"
reorganized with the help of the KGB; military
intelligence, called the "Estikhabarat," to
gather military information from abroad and
carry out assassinations; and watching over
both of them, the Ba'ath Party's own internal
intelligence service, the "Mukhabarat." This
was by far the biggest and most important
intelligence service of all. It also kept
an eye on the police, the army and other mass
organizations. The idea was that the Mukhabarat
should literally penetrate every street.
Mr. RAHMAN: Every member of the party would
be responsible for a block of streets. He
would have to know who are the people that
were against the Ba'ath Party, who don't like
Ba'ath ruling Iraq. This actually set the
infrastructure and I think is the most dangerous
way of keeping security, because making neighbors
spying on neighbors, relatives spying on relatives.
NARRATOR: Long before Saddam became president,
he knew he would have to penetrate the family
itself to keep control of the revolution.
Children were an early target. Young Pioneers
pay homage to the one they call "the magnificent
warrior." This hero-worship by children began
in the early 1970s when Saddam urged them
to call him "Uncle." And in 1977, Uncle Saddam
made this appeal to the Iraqi family.
SADDAM HUSSEIN, President of Iraq: [through
interpreter] Teach them to criticize their
mothers and fathers respectfully if they hear
them talking about organizational and party
secrets. You must place in every corner a
son of the revolution with a trustworthy eye
and a firm mind that receives its instructions
from the responsible center of the revolution.
NARRATOR: As Saddam's power and influence
grew in the '70s, it was clear that he had
designs on the presidency itself, but he also
knew that his cousin, al-Bakr, had powerful
support from the army. So with meticulous
cunning, he began to plot against the military
establishment. One of Saddam's first targets
was Bakr's defense minister, Hardan al-Takriti.
A former air force commander, Hardan was one
of the president's favorites, but he had lost
favor in a policy dispute. Publicly, Saddam
supported him. Privately, he had other plans
to make sure Hardan would not stand in his
way.
Mr. RAHMAN: Hardan was ordered to leave the
country. He went to the airport. Saddam gave
instructions to the airport to stop the airplane
so that he can go and say good-bye to Hardan.
He went to the airport. He went up the plane
and he kissed him good-bye, so people felt
that this man must be innocent. I mean, Saddam
has nothing to do with this plot, but only
few weeks later he arranged an assassination
and he killed him in Kuwait.
NARRATOR: Sixteen generals were imprisoned
or executed. Saddam was at al-Bakr's side
-- young and clearly ambitious. Why did al-Bakr
trust the much younger man?
Dr. MUALLAH: Because Saddam is one of his
relatives and Saddam, a young man, so al-Bakr
said -- thought that Saddam would have no
ambition to take his place, at least for the
first 20 years. So he trusted him and he brought
him and he pushed him up.
INTERVIEWER: And he was wrong.
Dr. MUALLAH: Yes, he was wrong.
NARRATOR: Systematically, Saddam had removed
Bakr's closest colleagues. In July 1979, Bakr
resigned for reasons, he said, of ill health.
Saddam, the new president, 42 years old, would
trust no one but himself.
Mr. RAHMAN: Saddam has said, "I can judge
a conspirator against me from his looks and
a look is enough for me to know he is a conspirator."
And when he believes somebody is a conspirator,
I think he deals with him before the would-be
conspirator would move against Saddam.
Mr. MATAR: [through interpreter] He is able
to read between the lines and also to read
people's eyes. Anyone who goes to see him
discovers that the first thing the president
does is look them in the eyes. He does rely
heavily on his sixth sense, on his instinct
of just knowing when something is fishy.
NARRATOR: Those around him could never rest
easily, not knowing what the president was
thinking or what plots he suspected. They
would soon find out. His first major purge
took place in 1979 at a special meeting of
the Ba'ath Party leadership. Saddam insisted
it be videotaped. What follows is a numbing
spectacle of terror. The business of the meeting
is very grave. The delegates await anxiously
as Saddam prepares to speak. He claims that
this time his famed sixth sense has failed
him.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [through interpreter] We used
to be able to sense a conspiracy with our
hearts before we even gathered the evidence.
Nevertheless, we were patient and some of
our comrades blamed us for knowing this but
doing nothing about it.
NARRATOR: A senior Ba'ath Party official then
rises to confess the existence of a major
plot.
LAURIE MYLROIE, Hussein Biographer: Then people
start to call for a wider purge. Ali Hasan
al-Majid, for example, who's his cousin and
who was the governor of Kurdistan responsible
for the severe repression of the Kurds and
was also initially in charge of the occupation
of Kuwait, he says to him, "What you have
done in the past was good. What you will do
in the future is good. But there's this one
small point. You have been too gentle, too
merciful." Saddam says, "Yes, that's true.
People have criticized" -- it's bizarre -- "people
have criticized me for that," he says. "But
this time, I'll show no mercy."
NARRATOR: Half an hour into the proceedings,
and the first conspirator is plucked from
the audience and led away to certain execution.
Saddam, meanwhile, is looking relaxed, drawing
on a cigar. But when he begins to speak, his
tone becomes severe.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [through interpreter] The
witness has just given us information about
the group leaders in that organization. Similar
confessions were made by the ringleaders.
Get out. Get out!
NARRATOR: More conspirators are led away and
as the numbers grow, the mood rises to a frenzy
of anticipation, for no one can be certain
that he might not be next.
Dr. POST: If you can imagine what it was like
to be sitting there -- "Am I about to be executed?"
And then, as he is doing this, to luxuriantly
light up a cigar, the absolute lack of feeling
for human suffering and the total sadistic
power over their lives -- really quite awe-inspiring.
NARRATOR: In a rising crescendo of desperation
to prove their loyalty, the surviving Ba'athists
shout "Long live the party! Long live the
party! God save Saddam from conspirators!"
Saddam, meanwhile, can be seen reaching for
a tissue. The tears are contagious. Then,
to guarantee the loyalty of his high command,
Saddam goes to sit Among them. He then invites
them to form the firing squad to execute their
former comrades. Saddam has neatly lured his
colleagues into sharing guilt.
Dr. POST: When one just expediently deals
out death for the sake of control, one doesn't
have to be personally involved. In fact, Saddam
reminds me of Josef Stalin in some ways, who
similarly took an enjoyment in the dealing
out, sadistically, life and death to his ministers,
almost whimsically.
NARRATOR: A few days later, crowds celebrating
the executions chant Saddam's name, an early
expression of the personality cult that he
would refine over the next decade.
Ms. SCIOLINO: Iraq was a disparate group of
peoples, of different religions, of different
ethnic backgrounds, and he needed an ideological
glue to solidify the country, so this is why
he created a mythology around himself. It's
why he tried to create a common history that
was a history of greatness. It's why he's
used terror and repression to homogenize his
people. Because the only way that Saddam saw
that he could stabilize Iraq and rule Iraq
was by pulling the country together.
NARRATOR: He also had the benefit of oil.
Iraq has the world's second largest reserves
and Saddam was going to use them.
Dr. SHAIKHLY: I think he used the oil revenue
in a very intelligent way. During the years
1980 and 1989, '90, the total income of Iraq
from oil was on average $12 billion a year.
Now, the credit line and various loans that
the United States, Britain and others have
given him, the total income during these 10
years amounted to about $223 billion. So there
was plenty in the kitty, not only to spend
on military infrastructure, as we have seen
recently, but also to spend on social, educational
projects where the greater masses have benefited.
This has increased his adulation and it was
a two-way kind of -- something given by the
leader and something gratefully received by
the population at large.
NARRATOR: American scholar Christine Helms
met Saddam for the first time in Baghdad in
1979. The president insisted on broadcasting
her three-hour-long interview with him on
national television.
Dr. CHRISTINE MOSS HELMS, Iraq Scholar: Saddam
is a man who, if you look back over the past
20 years, has always been an activist, a doer.
He creates things that are happening. He's
looking down the road. This is the visionary
aspect about him. His main concern has always
been survival of the Iraqi state, maintaining
the territorial integrity of the Iraqi state,
minimizing domestic discontent, whether through
the use of force or -- the Iraqis have a phrase
cadoine, the carrot and the stick.
NARRATOR: He is also utterly pragmatic, prepared
to change course when it seems necessary.
For years the Kurds have been fighting for
independence from Iraq. Even before he was
president, Saddam had courted Kurdish leaders
and signed an agreement conceding their major
demands.
Mr. RAHMAN: He charmed all the Kurdish leadership.
We felt he was knowledgeable. He was young.
He was determined. And it seems he was very,
very well briefed on our demands, so sometimes
he would pronounce some of our demands before
we saying them.
NARRATOR: But Saddam's promises meant nothing.
The agreement was broken and for over a decade
the guerrilla war continued. Saddam would
launch ever more savage reprisals, which finally
reached their nadir at Halabja in 1988. It
was genocide with poison gas. Five thousand
people died.
Dr. MARR: He is more willing to push things
to extreme. He is more willing to make the
means suit the end, to get his way, than other
people. When he has an adversary, he will
raise the stakes so high that the adversary
backs down. He will push things to the bitter
end and he certainly is a stubborn, extraordinarily
persistent man.
NARRATOR: He is also vainglorious. After the
Iran-Iraq war, he built a memorial arch in
Baghdad called "the victory swords."
Ms. SCIOLINO: What Saddam did is he had casts
done of his arms and hands and he had huge
forearms cast in a foundry in Britain, that
had to be trucked back to Iraq in pieces.
So out of the ground in Baghdad are these
two extraordinary forearms holding onto swords,
pouring out of nets that are -- sort of attached
to these arms are thousands and thousands
of Iranian helmets, I mean, actual helmets
that were taken from the bodies of dead Iranians,
helmets blown up by shrapnel, helmets with
bullet holes in them. And to me, this says
something about Saddam and something about
his regime.
NARRATOR: Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980
with America's implicit approval. The Iran-Iraq
war lasted for eight years. Over one million
died. Here was proof of his incredible control
over his population, his ability to mobilize
his resources, human and physical, and even
more importantly, his ability to motivate
them.
Dr. MARR: He fought that war with a sort of
a social contract with his people, that he
would try to fight it so as to keep casualties
down, but if the chips were down they were
expected to go in and fight, and by and large,
they did. So I think he learned that he has
a lot of control over his people. He can take
casualties.
NARRATOR: But the war also showed up some
of his shortcomings. Afraid of giving power
to the generals, Saddam insisted on directing
the war himself, but he was a military disaster.
He tried to broker a peace with the Ayatollah
Khomeini, but was rejected. He handed the
war over to the generals and they won it.
The man laying the wreath is Adnan Tulfah,
Saddam's wartime defense minister. They were
cousins. They'd grown up together. But by
the end of the war, Saddam saw Adnan as a
problem.
General ANWAR ZAHRAN, former Hussein Military
Adviser: [through interpreter] Adnan was considered
by the army as the real hero of that war and
Saddam felt that his growing reputation and
his ability could make him a rival for the
leadership. I think that Saddam saw Adnan's
popularity as a threat to him personally.
NARRATOR: There were rumors Adnan would be
dismissed. Instead, in April 1989, a convenient
helicopter crash solved the problem. At first
during the war Saddam, an avowedly secular
ruler, had scorned the Iranian Ayatollah's
Islamic rhetoric. But as the war dragged on,
Saddam grew anxious that Iranian fundamentalism
might undermine his own people's loyalty.
He suddenly claimed an ancestral link to the
Prophet Mohammed and even his military briefings
took on a distinctly Islamic tone.
Gen. ZAHRAN: [through interpreter] President
Saddam Hussein would chair the military meetings.
They were full of quotations from the Koran
and poetry, but I realized why he used to
give out that kind of briefing. It was not
directed primarily at us generals, but at
the public, who were very moved by its rhetorical
fervor.
NARRATOR: Saddam also used history and myth.
This film about the Arab hero Saladin reaches
back to the 7th century, before the Islamic
divisions, when Arabs united to defeat Persia.
Saddam identified with Saladin, who was from
his ancestral village, Takrit. Saddam was
also promoted as the new Nebuchadnezzar, the
Babylonian conqueror of the Jews. He set out
to rebuild ancient Babylon. Bricks are inscribed,
"The Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar was reconstructed
in the era of Saddam Hussein." But in 1989,
he was facing more current reconstruction
problems.
Mr. ATHERTON: He was trying to deal with what
were serious economic problems, political
problems, having been seen to have made a
deal and not really won the war with Iran,
despite all that he said. But in the end,
he was -- at bottom, his problems were: how
was he going to rebuild his economy, repay
his short-term commercial debts to Europe,
keep up his credit worthiness in order to
develop his infrastructure, his civilian economy?
NARRATOR: But the civilian economy took second
place to the military. Despite an $80 billion
debt, Saddam kept adding to the military machine.
He was more concerned about the world outside
and particularly his long-time sponsor, the
Soviet Union.
HISHAM MELHEM, Lebanese Journalist: Given
the changes in Eastern Europe, given the changes
in the East-West relationship with the Soviet
Union, his mounting economic problems, the
fear of Israel's preponderance -- and at that
time, the Israelis were talking about the
need to contain Iraq. So there were many real
reasons for concern for him in addition to
his sense of being besieged and given his
own paranoia to begin with.
NARRATOR: Years of surviving in the paranoid
world of his own politics only added to his
certainty that others were planning a conspiracy
against him.
Dr. MARR: It runs something like this, that
Iraq is the only strong Arab country, or the
strongest Arab country, and a group of outsiders
are trying to weaken it. Israel is always
at the head of this, the United States, and
assorted local allies. Earlier on it was Iran.
Now it's Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. They're
trying to weaken Iraq by various means. The
United States, for example, is trying to weaken
them by economically, not giving them credits,
by squeezing them in terms of technology.
It may seem bizarre to us but gradually I
think this particular theory has gotten quite
a grip on Saddam's mind.
Mr. MELHEM: Let's not forget that two years
go, three years ago, he was being cheered
by people in the West. This is the man who
was supported by American credit, intelligence
information, "dual use" materiel. He was provided
with technical support from the Germans, the
French. The French and the Soviets and the
Chinese provided him with weapons. And he
was given a great deal of money from the Saudis
and the Kuwaitis.
NARRATOR: Now he believed they all wanted
to bring him down and so, at an Arab League
meeting in early 1990, he demanded debt relief,
higher oil prices and land concessions from
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Iraq's argument with
Kuwait over oil and land was an old one. In
1961, President Kassem had threatened to seize
Kuwaiti oil fields. The British had sent in
the troops. Now, perhaps, Saddam would do
what Kassem had failed to do. In 1990, Hussein
felt the U.S. had forced Kuwait to overproduce
oil in order to lower world prices and thus
to strangle Iraq.
Dr. MARR: I think he came to believe -- I
know he came to believe, because they've said
it in their official documents -- that Kuwait
was overproducing oil not in its own interest,
but because it was goaded into that by the
United States in an effort to weaken Iraq,
and that's what he means when he says that
was tantamount to war.
NARRATOR: In fact, in April, a group of U.S.
Senators visited Hussein in an attempt to
convince him the U.S. wanted to strengthen
ties with Iraq. Senator Alan Simpson remembers
Saddam's state of mind.
Sen. ALAN K. SIMPSON (R-WI): He started right
off saying that there was a conspiracy against
him created by the United States and England
and that they had effectively created an international
conspiracy against him and that he was a peace-loving
man and used the word "peace" about every
17 seconds for three hours.
Mr. RAHMAN: Before the invasion of Kuwait,
he's been confiding to many people and sometimes
not in secret that the -- he was saying that
the Americans were trying to get rid of him.
I don't know how much this true, but he didn't
like the wind of change in the area, the wind
of -- democratic winds in the Eastern bloc.
He was terrified of them. So he -- maybe he
wanted real, real assurances, hard assurances
from the Americans that he will -- they will
do -- they will not do anything to weaken
him or destabilize him.
NARRATOR: But Washington was not sending him
either strong enough assurances or a clear
warning. At a State Department daily briefing
in late July, he was told the U.S. would keep
its distance.
MARGARET O. TUTWILER, State Department Spokesperson:
We do not have any defense treaties with Kuwait
and there are no special defense or security
commitments to Kuwait.
NARRATOR: But even that message was qualified
in the same briefing. In answer to a question
minutes later:
Ms. TUTWILER: We also remain strongly committed
to supporting the individual and collective
self-defense of our friends in the Gulf, with
whom we have deep and long-standing ties.
NARRATOR: The next day, Hussein summoned the
American Ambassador April Glaspie to explain
the statements.
Ms. SCIOLINO: The impression that Ambassador
Glaspie got from the meeting is that Saddam
was going to try to find a peaceful solution
to the crisis.
NARRATOR: Elaine Sciolino of The New York
Times is the only journalist to interview
Ambassador Glaspie, who apparently tried to
convince the annoyed Hussein that Washington
felt that Iraq's dispute with Kuwait was an
Arab, not an American, affair.
Ms. SCIOLINO: She had instructions to go in
and say to Saddam, "We want to improve relations
with you. We want to make sure that you understand
this." She repeated it. She said, "President
Bush is not going to impose sanctions. He
wants you to realize this. He wants better
relations with Iraq." The fact is that what
April Glaspie said is really a case study
in appeasement.
NARRATOR: It was also an approach to Hussein
that was recommended by others.
Ms. SCIOLINO: The Egyptians and the Saudis
told Bush, "Don't antagonize things. Don't
aggravate the situation. Lay low. Keep a low
profile. Don't say anything that could make
things worse, that could threaten things even
more."
NARRATOR: Eight days later, just as he'd been
threatening for weeks, Saddam Hussein invaded
Kuwait. Whatever was in his mind when he made
the decision, he still took the world by surprise.
Dr. MARR: l don't think we understand the
man. His personality, his brinkmanship is
something that we're really not used to dealing
with. I think the reverse is true, as well.
And I am not yet convinced that, without giving
him actually some things that I think the
West was unprepared to give him, that he would
have backed down.
NARRATOR: Neither the West nor his neighbors
would give him what he wanted, so he took
it. But it wasn't just his economy at home
that sent him into Kuwait. Saddam Hussein
wanted more.
Dr. MARR: I'll tell you what I think he really
wanted, one way or the other. He wanted recognition
of his role as the leading regional power.
He wants -- in my view, he wants to survive.
That not only means physical -- he's a brave
man. I don't cast any aspersions on his courage.
When we say "survival," we mean political
survival. He wants to survive and his regime
-- he wants his regime to survive in Iraq.
NARRATOR: The invasion seemed to have considerable
support from Iraqis, but for the West it was
his personal ambition that would define the
conflict.
President BUSH: We have no argument with the
Iraqi people -- none at all. Our problem is
with Saddam Hussein alone.
Mr. MELHEM: George Bush and Saddam Hussein
hail from two different cultural and social
backgrounds, yet, in one respect, both of
them dealt with this issue in strikingly similar
fashion. Each claimed that he represents righteousness,
light, in a mortal struggle with the other
who represents darkness and decadence and
evil.
President BUSH: Appeasement does not work.
As was the case in the 1930s, we see in Saddam
Hussein an aggressive dictator threatening
his neighbors.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [through interpreter] In the
same way as did Judas betray trust and Christ,
so has (Bush) betrayed, through his aggressivism
and deep-rooted evil, the teachings of Jesus
Christ.
President BUSH: We're dealing with Hitler
revisited, a totalitarianism and a brutality
that is naked and unprecedented in modern
times, and that must not stand!
INTERVIEWER: Was it a smart thing for George
Bush to both personalize and mythologize Hussein?
Mr. MELHEM: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Because it betrayed an incredible lack of
knowledge about the region, certainly about
the regime in Iraq, about the individual involved,
Saddam Hussein, and where he comes from.
INTERVIEWER: Did Hussein misread George Bush?
Mr. ATHERTON: Oh, I think so. He misread George
Bush and the American people.
INTERVIEWER: Why did he misread them so much?
Mr. ATHERTON: I think it's his own mindset,
a lifetime of misreading the world around
him, looking at the world in terms of the
Ba'ath Party climb to power and then fight
to stay in power in the very complicated,
in many ways, heterogeneous Iraqi political
climate.
NARRATOR: If there was one thing Saddam Hussein
had learned from Ba'ath politics, it was how
to go one on one with a rival.
Dr. POST: When he succeeded in involving George
Bush in a more personalized combat, not just
Iraq versus the United States but Saddam Hussein
versus George Bush, this played extremely
well in the Arab world, especially to the
weak, dispossessed, alienated individuals,
especially the Palestinians. Here was this
man who had the courage to stand up not only
against the most powerful nation on earth,
but against the president of the most powerful
nation on earth and engage him in one-on-one
combat.
NARRATOR: Saddam Hussein probably never expected
George Bush to go to war, convinced that he
wouldn't risk American lives. But he also
had few illusions about the firepower he was
facing.
Ms. SCIOLINO: In the days before the invasion,
one senior Iraqi official told me that Saddam
saw himself very much as the new Nasser and
thought that maybe he could lose militarily
but still the people of Iraq would come to
the streets the way the Egyptian people did
with Nasser and raise him up again and that
he could re-emerge as the leader of Iraq,
even with a military loss.
NARRATOR: While he may never have taken it
for granted, Saddam had come to expect the
power and prestige he enjoyed at home. Now
in much of the Arab world, from Morocco to
Jordan, he gained from the war what he could
never have engineered alone, the support not
just of the masses, but of the elite, like
these university professors in Amman.
1st PROFESSOR: He is a patriot. He is shrewd.
He is the leader who is going to lead us to
victory.
2nd PROFESSOR: This is an Arab problem. It
should be left to the Arabs to solve it. The
British, the Americans, the rest of the coalition
are paid for by the Saudis. They have nothing
to do here. This is our land, our country,
our problem, our issues, our culture, our
civilization!
NARRATOR: For Arabs, to bomb Baghdad is to
strike at the heart of Arab culture. It is
what bombing Athens, Rome or Paris would mean
to Europeans. Iraqi TV showed Saddam Hussein
in his bunker with his generals. Was he, as
the West hoped, beaten, unable to respond
or was he waiting with something else in mind?
Dr. POST: Unlike some other leaders who, once
they make a decision, will pursue it to the
end, on a number of crucial occasions when
Saddam has miscalculated and the decision
he has made has proven counterproductive,
he has been able to reverse himself. Now,
he doesn't view this as an error in decision-making.
He views this as adaptively responding to
a dynamic situation.
NARRATOR: After months of defiance, he began
to maneuver. In the name of the Revolutionary
Command Council, spreading the responsibility,
he offered to withdraw from Kuwait on condition
that the Israelis leave the West Bank. His
announcement was greeted with celebration
in the streets of Baghdad, but he was playing
a more complex geopolitical game. By sending
Tariq Aziz to Moscow, he drew the Russians
in, promising them a role in a post-war Middle
East and forcing President Bush to reject
the Russian proposal and set another deadline.
Throughout the long confrontation, Saddam
Hussein's decisions have consistently surprised
his enemies. Now, instead of fighting "the
Mother of Battles," he is relinquishing Kuwait
while claiming victory at home.
Dr. MARR: He's already emerging as a hero
in the Arab world for having withstood an
air campaign, having lobbed missiles in -- he
is really deriving a great deal of psychic
benefit from this as a hero. So I guess the
question we have to ask ourselves, if he has
enough psychic -- if he's left with a lot
of psychic benefits, even if he hasn't got
an army and he hasn't got an economy, if he's
stirred this dignity and pride, it's possible
that the Iraqis might let him survive and
the Arab world might let him survive.
Dr. POST: This man is the quintessential survivor.
We must remember that. And I think it is quite
possible for him to be highly creative and
innovative in his struggle to survive and
survive with honor. It isn't just a matter
of surviving and breathing. He needs more
than vital signs. He needs to survive with
his reputation not only intact, but magnified.
NARRATOR: Saddam Hussein surviving the war,
coming out alive with honor and control intact,
has been described as the "nightmare scenario."
Kuwait will be liberated and Iraq devastated,
but if Saddam survives he may actually retain
the one thing that ever really mattered to
him: power for its own sake.
