by Con Coughlin
As the conflict developed, Saddam transformed the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) into his personal headquarters, thus enabling him to maintain tight control over all war operations. The result was a lack of flexibility and initiative on the part of Iraq’s field commanders, who were severely handicapped in their ability to respond quickly and effectively to whatever new tactics the Iranians might deploy. Saddam’s insistence, for political reasons, that his military commanders keep Iraqi casualties to a minimum was but one example of how his amateurish interference hindered his commanders’ effectiveness. Far from reducing casualties, Saddam’s interventions, which were often diametrically opposed to the view of the professional soldiers, had devastating consequences. Unable to exploit their initial successes in southern Iran, the Iraqis were forced to commit their troops in worsening operational conditions as Iran strengthened its defenses, causing thousands of unnecessary Iraqi deaths. When he was in the wrong, Saddam’s hold over the military was so complete that the most experienced battalion and brigade commanders were unwilling to make independent decisions for fear of upsetting their commander in chief. Instead they referred decisions back to division or corps headquarters, which in turn approached the highest command in Baghdad. It should also be remembered that the political commissars who had been appointed by the Baath to keep a watchful eye on the military high command were present throughout, sending back their reports to the RCC on the performance of individual officers.
Saddam was well aware that his popularity was skin-deep among the majority of the Iraqi population and, true to character, he took care that the necessary preemptive measures were in place to keep him in power. The nation’s security apparatus now employed an estimated 208,000 people—twice the present size of the British army—which amounted to about 15 percent of all government employees.25 The special presidential security service, Amn al-Khass, remained under the watchful, and vengeful, eye of Saddam’s half brother, Barzan al-Tikriti. Despite the burdens of war, Saddam’s executioners hardly missed a beat; in 1981 and 1982, it is estimated, more than 3,000 civilians were executed in addition to those executed for purely political crimes.
The atmosphere of mounting suspicion that permeated the inner sanctum of the Baathist government is reflected in the infamous incident of March 1982 when Saddam shot dead one of his own ministers during the weekly cabinet meeting. While the government later claimed that the minister had been shot for profiteering—a crime punishable by death—the real reason for Saddam’s precipitate action was that Riyadh Ibrahim Hussein, the minister of health, had had the temerity to suggest that Saddam stand down in favor of former president Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, to enable a cease-fire to be negotiated in the Iran-Iraq War. By this stage in the hostilities the war had become a titanic struggle between the overinflated egos of Saddam and Khomeini, and by removing Saddam from the front line, the Iraqis might have been in a better position to sue for peace. When the minister made the suggestion, Saddam showed no outward sign of irritation. He merely interrupted the cabinet meeting and asked the minister to escort him outside. “Let us go to the other room and discuss the matter further,” said Saddam. The minister agreed and the two left the room. A moment later a shot was heard and Saddam returned alone to the cabinet as though nothing had happened.26 When the Iraqi news agency reported the execution of the health minister, it stated that he had been punished for importing medicine that had killed innocent Iraqis, and that he was therefore a “traitor.” When the dead man’s wife asked for the return of her husband’s body, it was delivered to her chopped into pieces. Soon after this incident Saddam sent a team of doctors working for his security forces to make sure that his ailing predecessor, former president Bakr, did not cause him any further problems in the future (see Chapter Seven).
Saddam’s insistence on maintaining direct control of the military campaign meant that he personally had to deal with the first rumblings of discontent within the armed forces. The war had never been particularly popular from the outset, especially as Iraq’s Sandhurst-educated officer corps were deeply skeptical about launching an offensive that lacked clearly defined goals. There had been intermittent reports of officers being executed for openly disagreeing with Saddam’s war aims, and matters came to a head in the summer of 1982 when a group of officers attempted to articulate what they regarded as constructive criticism of how the war effort might be better directed. Saddam, still nurturing his inferiority complex about the military establishment, did not see it that way, and about three hundred high-ranking officers were executed, together with a small number of party officials who had supported the officers’ point of view. Saddam showed no mercy to those officers he suspected of not doing their duty at the front. In one incident it was reported that Saddam personally executed an officer who had ordered a tactical retreat. The officer was brought before Saddam, who calmly drew his pistol and shot the man in the head.27
The Baathists had to contend with a rising number of deserters, although the security forces were easily able to deal with this particular problem. At first deserters who were unfortunate enough to be caught were returned to their homes, where they were executed. Later they were taken to the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, which was quickly earning itself a reputation as Saddam’s Lubianka. According to one prisoner who survived the horrors of the prison, which had replaced the Palace of the End as the Baathists’ main interrogation center, “the section of the Abu Ghraib reserved for those under sentence of death is a hall surrounded by rooms measuring four metres by four metres into each of which fifteen to twenty prisoners are packed. They have to use their rooms as toilets and rubbish dumps. The sun never finds its way into these rooms. A very small proportion of these prisoners are common criminals but the majority are from the military, men who have opposed the Iran-Iraq war.”28 Other inmates described a department of the prison dealing with “special sentences,” a category including all opposition members, but particularly those from the Dawa and the Communist Party. Many of these people were kept in basement dungeons, and allowed out for exercise only once a month.
In an attempt to dilute responsibility for Iraq’s failure to achieve its war aims, in June Saddam undertook a series of measures designed to ensure that the ruling echelon of the Baath accepted its fair share of the blame and to remove those for whom he had no further use. Saddam started by convening meetings of the RCC, whose members were invited to make their own plea to the Iranians to accept a cease-fire. This was duly rejected by the Iranians, thereby showing that removing Saddam would not end the war. At the next meeting Saddam staged a minipurge of the RCC, and eight of the sixteen members were removed. The most symbolic change was the removal of General Saadoun Ghaydan, the last survivor from the officers who had brought the Baath to power in 1968. Another indication of Saddam’s murderous mood during the summer of 1982 concerns an incident that is alleged to have occurred during a meeting of the National Assembly. As Saddam addressed the assembly he noticed a man in the audience passing a note to another man. Without thinking twice the president drew his pistol and killed both of them. Saddam assumed that they were plotting his assassination, and when the piece of paper was examined, the president was proved correct. Whether this story is true or apocryphal, it certainly enjoyed wide circulation in the coffee shops of Baghdad and reinforced the view that the Iraqi president was not a man to be trifled with.
The most serious challenge to Saddam’s position came from within his own family the following year when he was forced to place his three half brothers—Barzan, Watban, and Sabawi—under house arrest. Precisely what caused this family fallout has never been adequately explained. It has been suggested that Barzan was involved in a coup attempt against his half brother, in which he was approached by a group of military officers and offered the presidency if he would support a putsch against Saddam. Another version blames the failure of Barzan, who was head of security, to detect a plot against Saddam, which was ironic given that the previous year Barza
n had actually published a book entitled Attempts to Assassinate Saddam Hussein in which he provided details of seven alleged plots, some of which had taken place before Saddam became leader, and accusing such disparate forces as Syria, Israel, and the United States of being the masterminds behind the schemes.
A more likely explanation is that Saddam and his half brothers became embroiled in a family feud. It is probably no coincidence that these tensions developed soon after the death of Saddam’s beloved mother in August 1983; she was fiercely protective of her sons by her second marriage. The rivalry between the al-Majids, Saddam’s blood relatives through his natural father, and the al-Ibrahims, his relatives through his mother’s second marriage, was to become one of the key causes of tension within his regime. During her life Subha Tulfah had promoted the interests of all her sons, and the fact that all three of Saddam’s half brothers had occupied such prominent positions in the government was as much due to Subha’s persuasive talents as Saddam’s proclivity for filling key positions with fellow Tikritis and family. The most likely explanation for the fallout between Saddam and his half brothers in late 1983 was Saddam’s choice of bridegroom for his eldest daughter, Raghad. For all the Baathist propaganda about the emancipation of women that had taken place under the Baath, in Saddam’s family traditional, tribal customs still prevailed, and it was the duty of the father to choose a suitable son-in-law. In this case Saddam had opted for Hussein Kamel al-Majid, one of his cousins. An officer of limited talent, Hussein had managed to ingratiate himself with both Saddam and Sajida. He had accompanied Sajida on her shopping trips to New York and, thanks to his family connections, occupied several key positions in Saddam’s security apparatus. Saddam’s choice of Hussein, however, caused deep offense to Barzan, who had been hoping that his own son would become betrothed to Raghad. Barzan was so incensed by the news that Saddam had opted for Hussein Kamel that, in typical Tikriti fashion, he threatened to kill Hussein rather than let him deprive his own son of his chosen bride. Thus a country that was in the midst of a murderous war and that was in the process of developing an arsenal of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons found itself suddenly paralyzed by a family squabble over tribal marriage arrangements.
That the dispute was more tribal than conspiratorial was revealed a few days after the three half brothers had been placed under house arrest. Saddam made a public declaration of support in favor of Barzan’s loyalty, something he would not have done had there been a shred of proof that had implicated any of the three half brothers in a plot against Saddam. Had such evidence been forthcoming, they would have experienced the same fate as any other conspirator, and been dispatched by one of Saddam’s firing squads. Once tempers had cooled, the recalcitrant Barzan was treated in the same way as previous high-ranking Baathists who, for one reason or another, had fallen out of favor with the Baath hierarchy. Barzan was sent into exile as an ambassador, in his case in the unlikely role of Iraq’s official representative to UNESCO in Geneva. Three years later the two other half brothers were rehabilitated. Sabawi took over Barzan’s previous position as head of Amn al-Khass and Watban was made head of State Internal Security. The first significant crisis in Saddam’s relations with his family had been resolved without recourse to bloodshed. It was an example that would not always be followed in the troubled years that lay ahead.
NINE
The Victor
The war was taking its toll on Saddam. The military setbacks of 1982, together with the incipient signs of popular unrest, affected Saddam’s outlook. Saddam had always been susceptible to the idea that Baghdad was awash with plots and conspiracies, but the pressures of a war that showed no sign of abating only served to exacerbate his profound sense of paranoia. The carefree days when he could entertain his people with surprise visits, as he had on many occasions during the early years of his presidency, were long gone. No person or institution—not even his own family—was to be trusted. An elaborate and extensive security cordon was thrown up to protect the president from the numerous assassins, both foreign and domestic, who he had convinced himself were out for his blood. Whenever and wherever he traveled, decoy convoys of armored limousines with blacked-out windows and surrounded by heavily armed security guards would make dummy runs, trying to lure the would-be assassins from their lairs. With his own experience of plotting and carrying out assassinations, Saddam knew a thing or two about the mind of an assassin, and it was second nature for him to try to beat the assassins at their own game.
Similarly, visiting dignitaries would be required to go through a lengthy vetting procedure before they would be allowed into Saddam’s presence. No one, not even his closest aides, could safely predict where Saddam would be at any given time. On the rare occasions that Iranian fighter-bombers were able to reach Baghdad, Saddam was sure that the bombs were aimed directly at him. Consequently the president took to sleeping in various “safe houses” in the Baghdad suburbs, an old habit that he had practiced during his years as an underground organizer of the Baath in the 1960s and one he would repeat many times in the future when he felt his personal safety was at risk. Saddam’s mounting paranoia had many bizarre manifestations. When wearing his favorite hunting clothes, his hat would be lined with Kevlar bulletproof material. From the late 1970s he had employed his own cooks, but now they were supplanted by his personal food tasters, who accompanied him on trips when he ventured outside Baghdad. Rather than consult Iraqi doctors, who might easily be recruited by his enemies, Saddam hired a number of foreign physicians to care for his ailments. Former officials have claimed that he increasingly relied on the use of doubles to represent him at official ceremonies; one of the doubles is said to have been shot dead in 1984 after being mistaken for the real Saddam. Even Saddam’s eldest son, Uday, was reported to have his own double. General Wafic al-Samurrai, who for a period in the 1980s was one of Saddam’s most trusted military officers and was on intimate terms with the president, has confirmed that he saw doubles standing in for Saddam at minor official functions on several occasions.
Saddam had already created his own intelligence service, the Amn al-Khass, and in 1984 he took his personal security to new extremes when he created his own army, the revitalized version of the Republican Guard that had been in existence since the 1960s. The Baath prided itself on having its own militia, the Popular Army, which at the start of the war numbered around 250,000. In the early years of the war the Popular Army, which was in reality little more than a collection of enthusiastic Baathist amateurs, had carried out civil defense duties; on no account did it ever run the risk of seeing genuine combat. In 1984 Saddam decided to replace the Baath army with his own army unit, which owed its allegiance solely to the president. Beginning with just two brigades, the Republican Guard rapidly developed into an army within an army. It was equipped with the best available military equipment: Soviet-built T72, T62, and T55 tanks, French-manufactured 155-millimeter guns, and advanced ground-to-air missiles. Members of the Guard, drawn, like Saddam, from peasant Sunni stock, were imposing physical specimens. They received special training and better salaries than the other soldiers, and were totally dependent on Saddam for their existence. If the Iranians ever came close to invading Baghdad, the Republican Guard, like their praetorian forebears, would be expected to defend their president to the death. An elaborate security structure was imposed on the regular armed forces to prevent them from carrying out assassination and coup attempts. Army units were not allowed within one hundred miles of Baghdad, and when they relocated they did so without ammunition. Political commissars and security agents reported directly to Saddam’s office on the performance of individual officers, who were frequently moved from unit to unit to prevent them from becoming too close to their troops.
Saddam had been badly shaken by the Israeli air raid the previous year that had destroyed Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, and to protect himself and the regime from future air attacks he launched a costly program to build a network of underground bunkers to shelt
er both himself and the country’s strategic resources. Although Saddam claimed the plan was being commissioned in the interests of national security, there was more than a suggestion that Saddam’s own “bunker mentality” lay behind his interest in the project. British companies submitted designs for enough underground bunkers to hide forty-eight thousand soldiers. One of Saddam’s personal bunkers was built beneath a cinema in the basement of the Al-Sijood administrative complex, located close to the Presidential Palace. Small by Saddam’s standards (thirty feet by fifteen feet), it nevertheless contained enough electronic equipment, computers, teleprinters, and fiber-optic communications links for Saddam to maintain contact with his troops throughout the country.
Another Saddam bunker was built close to the new Presidential Palace complex he had started to build. This bunker, which was built by a German firm, was buried about three hundred feet beneath the Tigris River. The walls contained six to eight feet of reinforced concrete and the structure rested on huge springs, two feet in diameter, on a cushion of hard, molded rubber. In the event of a Hiroshima-sized bomb being detonated just a quarter of a mile away from the bunker, “Saddam would only feel a jolt.” The bunker contained two escape routes, including an earthquake-proof elevator. Both the entrances to this James Bond–like fantasy hideout were guarded by automatically controlled machine-gun nests.1 Saddam ordered special security arrangements to be included in the construction of the VIP lounge at Saddam International Airport, which was then under construction. He ordered the French contractors to build an underground escape route and a separate access road. “If the airport came under attack,” recalled one of the French engineers, “Saddam could escape through a 15-kilometre-long tunnel beneath the VIP lounge that led to a secret helicopter landing pad out in the desert.”2