Iraq

Saddam: Still Dead and Living in Baghdad

Saddam Hussein's latest "death" — this time from an alleged stroke — proved as short-lived as his previous passings, as the Iraqi leader made several televised appearances to confound the reports. The fact that Saddam is known to use a double who resembles him closely always leaves a certain amount of lingering doubt about whether the man on the screen is really the President, but the lack of any other indications of a vacuum at the top tended to quickly dispel the stories, but some skeptics noted that the televised appearances could have been taped at any time. On the other hand, such stories have turned up often enough that most Iraq-watchers want to see a body before they believe them. But with each day that passes without tanks in the streets, the likelihood of something major being wrong seems to dwindle.

The persistence of stories about Saddam's health, however, makes it worth analyzing the most recent round of rumors. It is still unclear whether there is some truth to the illness rumors, or it is merely wishful thinking on the part of the Iraqi opposition, or even a disinformation campaign by the Iraqi government itself.

It is true that not every version of the story had Saddam dead; many merely said he had suffered a severe stroke. In the latter months of 2000 there were numerous reports to the effect that Saddam had been diagnosed with lymphoma and was dying and his sons maneuvering against each other for the succession; but actual evidence was in short supply with those stories as well.

There are those who suspect that Saddam himself may float some of these rumors in an attempt to see who responds and how, to flush out those who might be waiting for just such an opportunity to move against him. There is considerable evidence that Mu‘ammar Qadhafi of Libya used to be fond of the same tactic, leaking stories that he had been wounded, that there were major rifts in the senior leadership, etc., and then moving against anyone who seemed to eager to grasp the passed torch.

Whether that is behind some of the health rumors is hard to determine. He is, after all, a man in his 60s fond of cigars and whiskey, and he has reportedly suffered some ailments, such as lower back problems, in the past. He clearly has bags under his eyes and some of his speeches have seemed a bit abstract and meandering to some analysts. But reports that he has been treated for cancer (lymphoma in some reports, leukemia in others) by French or other European doctors seem to elude confirmation. The stroke story apparently originated with the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shi‘ite opposition group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The story, picked up by the London-based Saudi-owned paper Al-Sharq al-Awsat and appearing in various forms in several British, German and Israeli publications, claimed that at the end of a military parade on December 31, or (in some versions), while attending a banquet after the end of the parade, Saddam had collapsed and had to be taken to a hospital. This was interpreted as his suffering a stroke. Some rumors appeared suggesting that he had died.

Ironically, at least some critics of Saddam's regime have argued that the attention paid to the rumors have distracted from the fact that the military parade on December 31 showed new weapons systems which suggest that Iraq is able to acquire spare parts and to have resumed some domestic production (See Defense Briefs, this issue.)

On January 3, an Information Ministry spokesman called the report "absurd", and noted that during the military parade, Saddam had fired 142 shots from his rifle one-handed to salute marching troops. It was not entirely clear how the ability to fire 142 rounds one-handed proved good health (as opposed to a strong arm and little concern for accurate aim), but the denial was absolute.

The same day, Iraqi television showed a tape of Saddam chairing a Cabinet meeting. Such clips are often shown, and rarely have any content allowing them to be clearly dated. The next day the television ran a clip of Saddam sitting with a group of Egyptian entertainers, smoking a cigar. He reportedly was heard to say (apparently in the third person), "Saddam loves his nation, but he loves Egypt especially because he has lived in Egypt". Saddam reportedly lived in Egypt briefly while in exile from Iraq in the late 1950s.

The third appearance was an address to the nation in honor of the 80th anniversary of the foundation of the Iraqi Armed Forces on January 6. Saddam spoke for 15 minutes, pledged to support the Palestinian intifada militarily, and other familiar rhetoric, although there was at least some of the almost abstract musing which has characterized some of his speeches recently. But the speech was delivered with Saddam standing and reading from a prepared text, and it was not explicitly said to have been delivered live. The topical references were primarily to the Palestinian uprising and thus not precisely dated.

Skeptics claimed that in the first clip of the Cabinet meeting, Saddam looked considerably younger than he does today, and none of the clips showed Saddam in public. He apparently had not in fact appeared publicly since the December 31 parade, and at one oath-taking at the Supreme Court where he had been expected, his deputy ‘Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri filled in.

Reports continued to circulate that something had happened on December 31. London's Daily Telegraph cited military sources as saying that Saddam had spent five hours in the cold reviewing troops, had been seen to be handed an overcoat at one point, and had reportedly claimed of chest pains at the end of the parade, after which he was taken to Ibn Sina hospital and treated by private cardiologists. That version could no more be confirmed than the others, but might at least explain how the rumors began.

While Saddam may well have had some sort of medical complaint and sought attention, the notion that he was seriously impaired or had died seemed unlikely, since in the garrison state that is Iraq there would likely have been visible measures taken to prevent a coup. Given the fact that the succession is by no means decided and there is a clear rivalry between Saddam's sons ‘Udayy and Qusayy, some sort of visible movement would have been likely. When the late President Hafiz al-Asad suffered an apparent heart attack or stroke in late 1982, his brother and other rivals soon had tanks in the streets. Nothing like that has been seen in Baghdad.

So Saddam appears to be still among the living, though the rumors of serious illness cannot be discounted quite so readily as reports of his demise.

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