by Jean Sasson
Ali Hassan al-Majid stood behind his desk.
He was tall and slim with broad shoulders. His eyes were large and expressive, colored the blackest black. His nose was small, but well-proportioned for his face. His complexion was smooth and fair. A perfectly manicured mustache shaded his lips, which were spread in a smile that displayed dazzlingly white, even teeth. With a military bearing, he walked around the desk and toward Mayada. He towered over her, and the look in his eyes was a little too intent. He gestured toward a chair that faced his desk. “Welcome to my office. Please, sit and be comfortable.”
Mayada broke her stillness and settled into the chair, then busied herself rummaging in her bag for her pen and a notepad. With her reporter’s tools in hand, she rushed through her questions without thinking, jotting down Ali’s answers and failing to follow up, trying only to bring this dangerous interview to a rapid end.
Ali al-Majid looked at Mayada quizzically as she made a fool of herself.
“So, you are the granddaughter of the great Sati Al-Husri?”
Mayada peered up from her notepad to see him examining her with squinted eyes while rubbing his chin with his hand.
“Yes,” she replied. “Sati Al-Husri was my mother’s father.”
“By God, Saddam says your grandfather was one of the greatest Arabs. He said Sati Al-Husri was a rare man, a scholar with nerves of steel. Is it true that he refused to allow the British to steal all our treasures?”
Mayada’s apprehensions relaxed just a bit. “Well, he didn’t greet them with a dagger in his hand. Jido Sati was rational but brilliant. So he outwitted them, instead.”
Ali al-Majid looked at her and considered her answer.
“Tell me about that,” he insisted.
With this talk of Sati, Mayada suddenly felt so comfortable that she teased the powerful man. “I am here to interview you, not the other way around.”
“Then—tell me one story of how a man defeats his enemies without using his physical strength.”
Mayada held back her laughter, watching Ali al-Majid flex his muscles like a strong man at a circus.
He looked at her with a teasing smile. “Go ahead. I am ordering you. Tell me one story about your grandfather,” he bargained, “and I will tell you everything you want to know about me.”
This interview was going better than she had ever hoped. Kamil was going to be ecstatic.
Mayada thumbed her pen against her pad. “All right. I will,” she agreed. She leaned back into her chair. “When I was a child, I spent many hours with my Jido Sati, and I remember the day he told me this particular story. So I know every word is true.
“When modern Iraq was first formed, King Faisal depended upon my grandfather for many things. He was the Director General of Education. He was the Dean of the College of Law. And he was the antiquities consultant to King Faisal, despite the fact that the British High Commission in Iraq, Sir Percy Cox, had appointed Gertrude Bell, an Englishwoman, as honorary Director of Antiquities. After Miss Bell’s death, however, Sati assumed full ownership of the post.
“As you probably know, Gertrude Bell was an extraordinary woman. She was a writer, an adventurer, a close friend to Lawrence of Arabia and even an advisor to kings. She was a very powerful representative of the British government. Few could stand up to her strong personality, and her government generally backed her bold initiatives. She even played a role in selecting Faisal as the first king.
“And Miss Bell took her honorary appointment seriously. Only a year or so after Iraq was recognized as a nation, Miss Bell walked into Sati’s office waving a document, saying that she wanted him to get the Cabinet’s approval for a new law. She told him she already had an expedition digging at the Ur site. She wanted this new law passed, a law that would change the method of handling the treasures uncovered.
“My grandfather was the most honest man who ever lived, and when he took that document home to review the project, he was horrified to see that she was proposing a new law based on the treaty signed between the Allied Forces in Turkey—a law that would allow the outcome of the digging to be left to the digger. In other words, she would be allowed to take many of Iraq’s treasures to England. Then my grandfather studied the old Ottoman law, the law that had always applied to the area, and he discovered that all antiquities dug up would belong to the government—the digger could only take replicas, or casts. Foreign expeditions were not allowed to take any antique objects out of the country.
“The next day, Gertrude Bell returned to Jido Sati’s offices for the signed document, but she didn’t get the answer she was expecting. My grandfather shared his research with her, and told her he was sorry, but he could not ask Parliament to sign the new law she was proposing, that the law would be harmful to Iraq.”
Mayada chuckled. “Jido Sati said he had never seen a woman get so furious, so fast. He said her face turned bright red, and she breathed so fast and heavy that it sounded like she was blowing a horn. He thought she might shout at him. However, he stood with a calm face. Miss Bell finally mustered her British cool and simmered down; she grew very calm and talked of other matters. Jido Sati said he knew she was considering how she might sidestep him. He was right. Three days later, he was advised by the British that responsibility of digging at archaeological sites had been given to the Ministry of Transport and General Works. The man who headed that post was rather weak, and he readily crumbled to Bell’s demands.
“My grandfather said that they had to compromise for a while, and that he believed that Iraq had lost a lot of antiquities because of Miss Bell’s law, but he got his law passed later and saved many other antiquities for the Iraqis. Gertrude Bell was much displeased with my grandfather, to say the least.”
Ali al-Majid looked gladdened at Mayada’s story. “Go on,” he said, “tell me more.”
“There was another incident shortly afterward, an even more interesting one about Iraq’s ancient Golden Harp. A British representative sought an appointment with King Faisal to advise him that King George V of England would soon celebrate a birthday. That man strongly suggested that King Faisal should present the Golden Harp of the Sumerians to the British King.
“That advice put King Faisal in an awkward predicament, because the British seemed determined to get the harp, the rarest harp in the world. Faisal made an excuse to the envoy and insisted, ‘Later, later.’ The King then called in Jido Sati and asked his opinion of how they might prevent such a catastrophe. Sati assured King Faisal that he would handle the matter and would divert British anger onto his own head. Sati went straight to the British and advised them that his King was in no position to give away the Golden Harp of the Sumerians, much as he might want to honor King George, that there was a law that forbade such a transfer. Sati told the British envoy he could point the man to a storehouse of antiquities for which replicas already sat in Iraqi museums, and Sati would be happy to help the man select an appropriate replica for the King’s birthday.
“The British were flummoxed because they pride themselves on being a law-abiding country. So they had to settle for a replica rather than a one-of-a-kind golden harp.
“King Faisal always teased Sati after that and told him the harp had been saved by Sati’s strong heart and personality. King Faisal insisted that Sati was the only man in the entire country who could have saved the harp patrimony for the Iraqi people. Without Sati, he said, greedy British fingers would have strummed that instrument for years to come.
“My grandfather was hated by the British after that. They were not satisfied until they exiled him from the country, which they did years later, when they used a popular uprising as an excuse to put Sati on the list of undesirables.”
Ali al-Majid seemed suddenly bored with talk of antiquities. His smile faded and he demanded of Mayada in a loud voice, “Let me see that ring.” He stared at Mayada’s finger, encircled with a sapphire and diamond cluster ring recently given to her by her mother.
Mayada noticed that when Ali spoke in a loud
tone, he employed a nasal voice not unlike Saddam’s. She was so taken aback by his request that she slipped the ring from her finger and handed it to him.
Mayada watched as he studied the ring carefully. He turned it over in his hands and looked at the stones from the underside.
“By God, are these stones real?”
She stiffened. “Of course they are real. My mother purchased it at Tiffany’s. In celebration of the birth of my baby, Fay.”
Ali gestured now at Mayada’s dress. “Where did you get your outfit?”
“My mother bought this dress in Paris.”
The man’s physical beauty diminished in Mayada’s eyes with every word he spoke.
Ali smiled, then tilted his head down to the side in a charming, sort of boyish manner. “By God, do you dye your hair?”
Mayada’s earlier nervousness was lifting, as Ali al-Majid stared at her artlessly. Perhaps he was one of the most powerful men in the country, but this man was nothing but an uneducated village boy. He was devoid of social graces, unable to hide his brazen curiosity. Perhaps Saddam Hussein didn’t allow Ali al-Majid to give press interviews, she thought. Unlike the man in front of her, Saddam had made every attempt to increase his knowledge of the world. He had attended law school in Cairo, taught himself to eat properly and to dress like a gentleman—anything to distance himself from his rustic past. Ali was a different story. She was certain that Saddam must be embarrassed for Baghdad society to know that such a man was his first cousin.
Ali al-Majid smiled gleefully, seemingly happy to be unleashed from his self-imposed—or Saddam-imposed—silence. He answered every question on Mayada’s list and then insisted she take his private telephone number. He urged her to call him after Saddam’s birthday celebration so he could give her a much lengthier interview about his personal history. “I will tell you about my entire life,” he promised with an engaging smile.
When Mayada left Ali Hassan al-Majid’s offices, she went straight to the magazine offices. Kamil met her at the door and escorted her into his private office. He was surprised and pleased when she read him her notes. “He opened up to you,” he described with a broad smile. “I hoped he would.”
Mayada gave Kamil the best news yet. “He promised me a broader interview. He says he will give me every detail of his personal life.”
Kamil laughed with her. “This is a huge success. No one has ever gotten this man to speak on the record!” He then scurried to make arrangements to remove a story scheduled for the magazine’s next issue, so Mayada’s piece about Saddam could be inserted instead. A week later, Mayada’s story ran. The article was the talk of Baghdad, because it was the first time that Ali Hassan al-Majid had spoken out.
And Ali Hassan al-Majid delivered on his promise to give Mayada information about his own life, so that she could write a piece about him. When Mayada telephoned his office after Saddam’s birthday celebration, she was graciously invited to return. When she arrived, she was once again struck by the man’s gorgeous exterior, though his beauty no longer stirred magic in her.
Ali al-Majid seemed overly pleased to see Mayada, announcing that he had cleared his schedule for their meeting. He shouted for someone to bring her tea and cookies and, before she could respond, he abruptly ordered her to sit. “Today, I will do all the talking!”
Ali seemed as excited as a child. And so Mayada sat and listened.
Ali braced himself against the edge of his desk and looked impatiently at her while Mayada organized her pad, pen and tape recorder. The moment she was ready, the story of his life gushed from his lips, those of a man who apparently had longed for an attentive audience for his entire life.
He loudly announced, “This is the life of Ali Hassan al-Majid Al-Tikriti, the proud son of Hassan Majeed Al-Tikriti.” I have three brothers who stand beside me, Abid Hassan, Hashim Hassan and Suleiman Hassan.“ He flashed a huge smile before continuing.
Mayada was mesmerized by this man-child, feeling a hundred years older than this, the head of Iraq’s secret police.
“Because of our great leader, Saddam—may God preserve and bless him—everyone knows that I was born in the poor rural area of Tikrit. I had to skip school when I was a child, because my brothers and I took turns tending the sheep. I had to walk long distances to find places to graze, but I was alert to wolves and not one ever ate a single sheep when I was on guard. Not one! By God, my brothers could not match my diligence. But those vicious wolves would slink around the edges of the herd and I would toss stones and rush at them with my hands spread like this.”
He imitated those long-ago movements with his hands in the air and got into a crouched stance that she had to admit looked rather fierce. But Mayada was not afraid, and she laughed. He laughed back freely.
“By God, those sheep-guarding days shaped me into an alert soldier, someone who never takes his eye off the enemy.
“We were so poor that I didn’t know there were such things as movie houses until I was a grown man. So I didn’t get into the habit of going to the cinema, and I have seen only one movie in my entire life, a religious film about the Prophet Joseph.” He shrugged. “It was all right, but I had rather look at newspapers and magazines.
“I have high blood sugar that turned into diabetes, and I have to inject myself with insulin every day.” He startled Mayada when he rushed to a cabinet against the wall and pulled a thin needle and a tiny medicine bottle from a drawer. He then ran back in front of her and gave himself a shot in the arm.
He laughed when she winced, but she told him that her reaction was from surprise rather than a fear of needles. “Before my father died of cancer I learned to give him his shots, for pain. When the nurse left our house each afternoon, I had the responsibility to inject him. I was also trained to give IV injections.”
Ali al-Majid seemed genuinely touched by her father’s ordeal and looked at Mayada with sympathy. He told her he was sorry, that to lose a father would be the worst thing for a young girl. He loved his own daughter more than his own life, he told Mayada, but he would tell her about that later. Then Ali returned to the subject of his diabetes.
“It’s a pity for me that I have diabetes because I love sweets more than any other food. Sometimes I eat lots of sweets and simply hope for the best. My favorite sweet is a trifle cake with jelly—custard and fruits in layers. I also like chocolates.” He walked around to reach under his desk and pressed a buzzer. When a servant entered the room, Ali told him, “Go and get a box of each brand of my favorite chocolates.”
Mayada protested, because she had watched her weight all her adult life and couldn’t imagine eating chocolates freely. But Ali al-Majid was not a man who listened. Moments later, boxes of Mars bars, Kit Kats and Smarties covered her lap and, since Ali seemed thrilled to give her a little gift, Mayada accepted the boxes, thinking she would offer the chocolates at her office later.
“I want you to come to a wedding in four days. My brother is marrying Dr. Fadil Al-Barrak’s sister-in-law.”
“I have heard,” Mayada mumbled, still surprised that two men who admitted such dislike for each other agreed to permit their families to join in such an intimate way. To avoid a discussion of Dr. Fadil, Mayada changed the slant of the conversation. “How old is the bride?” she asked.
“Sixteen.”
“That is too young,” she protested, thinking of her own daughter, who would be sixteen in only fifteen years. Mayada would never allow her darling Fay to become a child bride. The Arab custom of young brides was primitive, she thought.
Ali al-Majid laughed. “Sixteen is the perfect age for a girl to marry. My brother is a lucky man. He can mold her exactly as he wants her to be.”
Mayada said nothing to this remark, but she was struck again by an inner happiness that she had been born into an educated family, where females were valued as highly as males.
Ali al-Majid plucked a small red rubber ball from the top of his desk and kneaded it between his fingers as he raised the topic Ma
yada had hoped to avoid. “How do you know Dr. Fadil Al-Barrak?”
“In 1979, he approached my mother and asked to borrow my grandfather Sati’s books and papers,” Mayada explained. “He was writing a book and wanted them for research. After that he became a generous friend of our family. The friendship came about because of Sati, of course,” she added quickly.
Ali wobbled his body from head to toe in disgust. He threw the ball against the wall and watched it bounce around the room. “I do not like Fadil.”
“Why? I can think of nothing bad to say about him.”
Her words won her a frown from Ali, who proved eager to explain his dislike.
“When I took over the secret police, I got a complaint about him from a group of gypsies. Fadil had ordered them to abandon a piece a land they were living on. It was in the suburbs of Baghdad. I summoned the head gypsy to my office and discovered that he was the brother of Hamdiya Salih, a well-known gypsy singer.” He looked at Mayada and smiled. “I like the gypsies. They are human beings, after all. Anyhow, those poor people had nowhere else to live. So I telephoned Fadil and ordered him to send one of his high-ranking officers to deliver this gypsy back to Fadil’s new office at Intelligence.” Ali laughed loudly. “I ordered Fadil to apologize and to give the land back. I think he had built a big house on it by then and he had to give that up.” Ali could not stop himself from laughing at the memory of Dr. Fadil’s humiliation.
So now she understood the reason that Dr. Fadil hated Ali Hassan al-Majid. Due to Ali’s close family relationship with Saddam, Dr. Fadil was forced to obey Ali’s commands, despite the fact that Dr. Fadil held a higher office. Mayada still felt uneasy, not wishing to disparage Dr. Fadil in any manner, so she remembered one of her mother’s tactics and flattered the man. “That was kind and generous of you.”
He looked at her intently. “I am like that, you know. I am the kindest man. The kindest!”
Ali al-Majid slid back onto his desktop and began to swing both feet. “Let me tell you another story. A woman came to me saying that her only son had been executed because he was an Islamic activist. She had nowhere to turn. Her husband was dead. Her son was dead. She had no brothers. That poor woman was old, almost blind. So I ordered that she be given a house and a monthly income of 100 dinars a month [$330]. Just because her son had done wrong didn’t mean we should punish her.”