If there was time, the first thing he’d do after being shuttled from the Rock to the IHT courthouse was to go to the small underground rec area near his cell—really nothing more than an empty room with a few steel folding chairs where he could visit with his codefendants—and light a cigar. Since he didn’t smoke during transport out of deference to the soldiers who didn’t like it—a paradoxical display of manners from a man who’d unblinkingly sanctioned the execution of his sons-in-law—he’d be craving the pleasant tobacco taste and hit of nicotine by the time he arrived. Before lighting up, though, he’d often ask the soldiers guarding him if they’d like one. He’d sometimes be joined by his codefendants. Together, they shared Saddam’s cigars and the assorted sweets the former president had gathered from the care packages prepared by his daughter Raghad and delivered to him by his lawyers, who shuttled back and forth to Amman with some regularity. Just as Saddam had parceled out extravagant gifts to his loyalists while in power, he continued to dispense perks now that he was powerless, even if those perks were paltry.
Once he got word that the trial was about to resume upstairs, Saddam would slowly make sure that he looked presentable, and then step into the elevator to be delivered to the courtroom. He knew that as soon as he exited the elevator, he was stepping back out onto the world stage.
Day eight of the Dujail trial brought a major surprise. Mild-mannered Judge Amin had been replaced by Judge Rauf Abd al-Rahman, a Kurd from the town of Halabja, which had been the site of one of Saddam’s most egregious crimes when he’d launched chemical gas attacks against Iraqi Kurds during the Iran-Iraq War.
“The chief judge has been replaced,” Rauf began, explaining that this was “an administrative and procedural action, and that the rights of the defendants would be preserved.”
The balding sixty-four-year-old Judge Rauf couldn’t have been much more different from his predecessor, as evidenced by his efforts to take command of the courtroom immediately. He wasted no time trying to set a new tone, saying, “We will allow you to speak, but not political speech. If anyone insults the law or the court or members of the court they will be removed.”
He would soon be tested, like a substitute teacher confronting a classroom of schoolchildren accustomed to misbehaving. Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam’s half brother who’d headed the Iraqi intelligence service, would be the first to see how far he could push the new judge.
“I am convinced that the court is illegal and the daughter of adultery,” Barzan began.
“I am asking you to address the court respectfully and I will not allow you to insult it,” Rauf responded.
“Before you there was a brave man, and you took his place,” Barzan continued, suddenly having developed an affinity for poor judge Amin, whom he and the defendants had so tormented.
“I didn’t take his place. This is an administrative procedural action,” Rauf replied, repeating his talking point.
In reality, the removal of Amin rightly aroused the suspicion of trial observers, as it looked to skeptics as if he’d been ousted for being too lenient with the defendants. Adding to the suspicion that the Iraqi government was meddling in the trial was the fact that Amin was initially to be replaced by Judge Sa’eed al-Hammashi, who, unlike Rauf, had been one of the original five judges in the trial. Al-Hammashi was dumped at the last moment, however, due to unsubstantiated charges that he’d been a Baathist. His removal was the handiwork of Ahmed Chalabi, who chaired the De-Baathification Commission and whose fingerprints were all over so many of the sectarian missteps that occurred during the early years of the American occupation.
Barzan, seemingly relishing his role as the trial’s chief agitator, continued his disruptive protestations.
“I want to explain my medical situation,” he blustered. “I need tests but the machine is broken and I can’t have them. My sickness needs observation and it needs medical and psychological treatment and I can’t have it in the prison. Iraqi law admits releasing sick prisoners. Why don’t you release me?”
Judge Rauf responded evenly, but firmly. “Listen, make this demand through your lawyers and when we get it we’ll refer it to the medical committee. Sit down.”
“I will not sit down,” Barzan thundered, his voice now more menacing.
Rauf had had enough.
He motioned for the guards to remove Barzan, who was then marched out after some pushing and shoving.
Saddam couldn’t resist getting in on the act. He rose to his feet and shouted, “Down with America! Down with the traitor! Long live Iraq!” Soon some of the other codefendants and their lawyers joined him in cursing the judge.
“Bring in the court-appointed lawyers!” Rauf ordered as Saddam threatened to once again hijack the proceedings. Recognizing that Saddam’s chosen legal counsel might not fulfill their duties, the court had appointed Iraqi defense attorneys to observe the trial and remain on call in an adjoining room to fill in as necessary. Thus it was that one of Rauf’s first official acts was to eject Saddam’s entire disagreeable lot of lawyers and replace them with the court-appointed ones. Saddam’s chosen attorneys weren’t banished from the trial permanently but rather, like unruly schoolchildren, just removed for the day and allowed to return for future sessions (though as the trial progressed expulsions and walkouts of defense counsel would result in the same disruptive scenario repeating itself).
As the court-appointed defense team appeared on command, Saddam glared malevolently at them. “We reject and refuse you,” he said, sneering. “If you stay, you are devils.” He then demanded to be allowed to leave the courtroom, a request Rauf was more than happy to accommodate.
“Remove him,” Rauf ordered.
Saddam continued his protest, saying, “Don’t say ‘Remove him.’ I was your leader for thirty-five years.”
“Remove him,” Rauf repeated unflinchingly, refusing to back down.
• • •
Rauf’s hope that establishing a more firm presence from the bench would restore some normalcy to the trial proved to be wishful thinking, as the circus-like atmosphere continued. As the proceedings entered their eleventh day, Saddam marched into the courtroom shouting, “Long live Iraq! Long live the Arab nation! Down with the traitors! Down with Bush! You are not a judge, you are a criminal.”
Rauf appeared unfazed, responding, “Enough speeches. Call for the next defendant.”
Barzan was the last to enter, shouting, “Long live Iraq! Long live the Iraqi people!” Remarkably, he was dressed in what appeared to be white long underwear, as if he’d just rolled out of bed in a winter cabin rather than shown up for the most high-profile trial in his country’s history.
Saddam eagerly joined in on the sideshow. “Shame on you, Rauf!” he shouted.
Not to be outdone, Barzan growled, “You are not rauf” (which in Arabic means kind).
“You are not rahman,” he continued, seizing on the judge’s last name, which means compassionate.
“Enough! Sit him down!” Rauf ordered from his perch in front of the courtroom.
Saddam then shouted, “This is the behavior of the traitors. God is great! God is great!” Using one of the catchphrases that had featured so prominently in many of his presidential speeches, he added, “And curses upon the evildoers.” Not finished, he delighted some in the audience by hurling the base Arabic insult “Curse the father of your mustache.”
• • •
Of course, the persona of raging showman that commanded the world’s attention in the courtroom disappeared the moment the elevator doors shut and Saddam was returned to his cell on the floor below. Chris Tasker was sitting outside Saddam’s rec area beneath the courtroom one day, observing Saddam alone in what was little more than a “steel cage with four chairs,” when Saddam suddenly looked up at him.
The former president was seated on a metal chair with his legs crossed, puffing on a cigar. Tasker, not entirely sure how to react to the prisoner’s stare, felt the need to say something to break the uncom
fortable silence, and decided to go with the innocuous, That sure smells good, sir.
You want some? Saddam asked gamely, gesturing for Tasker to join him in the cell.
Sure, Tasker replied, trying to appear nonchalant.
Tasker slid the cell door open and entered the room. He took the cigar from Saddam’s outstretched hand and inhaled the sweet tobacco smoke, careful not to cough in front of Saddam, before exhaling and sending it arcing into the cool air of the underground cell.
Soon, though, the mounting silence that accompanied the shared cigar again grew awkward. Tasker searched for something to say. How did you get started with cigars? he came up with—a natural question for the Cohiba-loving Saddam.
Fidel, Saddam responded, smiling.
Saddam liked to share the story with the guards of how Fidel Castro had taught him how to smoke cigars. Sometimes he’d even show pictures of the two of them together, likely taken during one of his rare foreign trips—a 1979 visit to Havana.
Tasker thought that this was pretty cool. What would his buddies back in Ohio think when they heard that he’d smoked a cigar with Saddam Hussein? That is, if he could ever tell them, he thought, remembering his instructions not to discuss this mission with anyone. Trying to keep the conversation going, he saw a magazine sitting nearby with a picture of a car on it and gestured at it. “Which kind is your favorite?” he asked Saddam.
“Mercedes,” the former president responded without hesitation.
Tasker thought that steering the conversation to cars had been a good idea—it was something he knew a lot about.
Suddenly, a man burst into the rec area. “You can’t be in here,” he announced breathlessly.
“Okay,” Tasker said. He immediately knew what had happened, and kicked himself for not having expected as much. Someone watching the bank of closed-circuit TV screens in “mission control” must have seen him sitting with Saddam, smoking a cigar, no less. The alarmed monitor had hustled down to put a stop to the fraternizing. Both Saddam and the soldiers were under more of a microscope at the IHT, making it difficult to enjoy the casual interaction that marked life at the Rock.
Saddam, meanwhile, was oblivious to the drama taking place between his American minders as he continued to puff away contentedly on his cigar.
CHAPTER 25
Baghdad, Iraq—2006
Dressed in his dishdasha and clutching his prayer beads, Saddam paced in his outdoor rec area and silently mouthed a string of words. Hutch was on duty and looked on quietly as Saddam traversed the “little lap that he walked all the time”: from the side of Hutch’s plastic chair, across the rec area to the assortment of overgrown weeds he cared for, and back. Hutch later recalled that when Saddam walked back and forth like this, mumbling to himself, “you’d think he’d lost his mind if you didn’t know him.” Sometimes his cadence and mannerisms suggested to the Super Twelve that he was rehearsing things he planned to say in court. Saddam himself may have suspected that his behavior appeared odd, as he’d sometimes look up, catch the guard on duty observing him, and offer an almost sheepish smile.
Hutch was absentmindedly flipping through one of the People magazines he’d grown hooked on during the deployment when he noticed that Saddam had stopped pacing and was looking at him. Sir? Hutch asked, anticipating a request he’d be expected to help out with. But it was not a request. Saddam just wanted to talk. And that was fine with Hutch.
Me and Barzan, we used to fish right near here, you know, Saddam began. Oh, very big fish there, not so many there, he explained, trying to describe the various fishing holes in the nearby man-made lake.
Despite the Super Twelve’s efforts to keep their location a secret, Saddam knew exactly where he was. Sometimes he’d even catch a glimpse through the white sheet that the soldiers had installed over the windows of his Humvee, and at such times he’d volunteer observations on landmarks they were passing.
The fish Saddam described could indeed grow quite large. American soldiers took to calling the hulking carp “Saddam bass” after hearing rumors that he’d stocked the lakes with them. As with most stories surrounding Saddam, this one wasn’t without a darker legend. The Super Twelve heard tales that Saddam’s henchmen had dumped into the lakes the dying bodies of enemies they’d shot, causing the large fish to develop a taste for human blood.
Even with Saddam out of power and on trial, the gruesome violence hadn’t abated. The only difference was that now, instead of regime opponents, it was victims of Iraq’s worsening civil war who sometimes found their way into the water. Hutch would sometimes fish these “floaters” out of the lake, parts of the decomposing corpses disintegrating in his hand as he struggled to retrieve them.
As sectarian death squads ramped up their efforts to ethnically cleanse mixed Baghdad neighborhoods, ghastly discoveries became routine. That same year, for example, twelve corpses got caught in metal grates intended to block debris from floating into the Tigris. The victims had been bound, blindfolded, and shot in the head before being dumped in the river, yet their discovery prompted little more than a shrug from Baghdad’s citizens. After three years of escalating violence, such macabre finds had become the new normal.
Saddam—who’d predicted this societal breakdown would occur, confidently telling his CIA interrogators shortly after his capture that “you will need someone like me to hold this place together”—seemed remarkably upbeat as he recalled his fishing exploits. Rather than growing dejected, he seemed energized as he shared memories of a life he no longer enjoyed.
Barzan, he was tricky, Saddam said, as he continued his account of fishing with his half brother.
Oh yeah, Hutch replied, who usually caught more fish, sir?
Barzan would lie and tell me that his fish were bigger. But mine were really bigger, Saddam said, using his hand to illustrate the difference in size between fishes they’d argued about years ago, trying to find the right words to communicate how much they differed in weight.
Those sound like some big fish, sir, Hutch volunteered agreeably, as Saddam stood before him, a big smile lighting his face.
Yes, they were—big and mean. I like them that way—I like them mean so they fight back, Saddam said. I used to prepare and cook them myself, he added with pride.
He then continued his pacing, a serene expression on his face as he thumbed his prayer beads and in his imagination was transported back to those peaceful afternoons on the water.
Baghdad, Iraq—1980s
Saddam watched his fishing line dangle in the man-made lake, admiring the water’s tranquil surface and the contrast it made with Baghdad’s throbbing energy just a few kilometers away outside the palace walls. Blending into that urban buzz were the screams of anguish issuing from prison cells across the city. On this day, Saddam was joined by two of his close confidants, Taha Yassin Ramadan and Tariq Aziz, as well as Jordan’s King Hussein and a few of the king’s senior officials.
Saddam enjoyed spending time with King Hussein. They were an unlikely pair, Saddam having risen from nothing to become a peer of the urbane king, who hailed from the largest tribe in the Arab world. The two rulers and their top aides gathered on a small platform jutting out into the lake’s cool blue waters. None actually held their rods; instead they simply laid their hooked lines beneath large stones at the platform’s edge, where they could dangle in the placid water. Perhaps not surprisingly in a country where everything was engineered to keep the dictator happy, Saddam’s line jerked sharply every few minutes, even while the others lay dormant in the water. Saddam acted surprised—and gleeful as a child—every time he reeled in one of the Tigris carp.
As King Hussein and a few of his top ministers relaxed on the short one-hour flight back to Amman, the king feigned exasperation that Saddam’s line had attracted a seemingly endless number of fish while the others rarely rated a nibble. Mostly joking, but with a hint of frustration, the king went on to speculate that maybe there was a diver under the water attaching the fish to Saddam’
s hook—or perhaps a cage full of fish had been positioned directly beneath the spot where Saddam had cast his line.
On a subsequent visit things changed. Finally, the king felt a bite on his line. Almost simultaneously Saddam felt one. The king speculated, according to his tongue-in-cheek conspiracy theory, that perhaps the underwater diver had placed the fish on his hook before quickly recognizing his mistake and affixing one to Saddam’s as well. Much to the king’s pleasure, and probably to the horror of Saddam’s entourage, when the two heads of state pulled their catches from the water the king’s fish appeared to be the bigger one. Saddam wasn’t pleased, but he didn’t miss a beat. He summoned an aide and turned over the two fish to him with instructions to weigh them and determine which was larger.
The aide soon returned, earnestly reporting that Saddam’s was a quarter kilogram heavier.
Baghdad, Iraq—2006
My friend, Saddam said to Hutch, I’m ready to move inside now.
His words briefly startled Hutch, who’d lost himself in a daydream as he watched Saddam pace almost hypnotically back and forth across the rec area.
Okay, sir, let’s do it, replied Hutch as he gathered up his radio and the magazines he’d been leafing through. Leaving behind the outdoor patio, which was ringed by concrete walls topped with concertina wire, he led the former president back inside, walking in front of him as he always did so that the old man had someone to grab on to and steady himself should he lose his footing.
Once they’d completed the short walk inside, Saddam stepped aside and waited for Hutch to open the cell door for him. A germaphobe, the deposed ruler avoided touching door handles whenever possible.
At the guard desk just outside Saddam’s cell, Hutch set down the items he’d taken outside with him and settled his large frame into one of the guard chairs. As soon as he had sat down, however, Hutch noticed that Saddam had remained standing, looking at him with that unmistakable expression that suggested something was amiss.
The Prisoner in His Palace Page 12