Saddam: His Rise and Fall by Con Coughlin

Author:Con Coughlin [Coughlin, Con]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: AcM
ISBN: 9780060505431
Google: R3DbhziX14QC
Amazon: B000GG4GBC
Barnesnoble: B000GG4GBC
Goodreads: 193104
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2005-10-17T16:00:00+00:00

By the summer of 1982 the glory Saddam had hoped to acquire from the “second Qadisiya” was fast becoming a distant memory. The brutal reversal in Iraq’s fortunes in a war that Saddam had predicted would last just two to three weeks was developing, as it neared the end of its second year, into a crisis for the Iraqi leader. With an estimated one hundred thousand Iraqi dead, thousands more injured, and the remnants of his invasion force rotting in Iranian prison camps, for the first time in his presidency Saddam’s personal survival was starting seriously to be questioned.

The first indication that Saddam’s popularity was on the wane emerged in April when an assassination attempt was made on the information minister, Latif Jasim. The gunmen were members of the Dawa, Iraq’s militant Shiite group, although the assassination attempt itself was inspired more out of a desire to avenge Saddam’s execution of Sadr, their leader, and his sister. Saddam responded in his customary fashion by rounding up hundreds of Shiites, many of whom were never to be seen again. A few months later a serious attempt was made by the Dawa to assassinate Saddam himself when he was visiting the village of Dujail in the Balad district of Iraq, about forty miles northeast of Baghdad. In the ambush, which lasted for more than two hours, the presidential party was pinned down and had to be rescued by the army. Several of Saddam’s companions died in the attack and eight of the assassins were killed. The assassins named their operation Um Al Hada, after the sister of Ayatollah Sadr executed by Saddam. A few days later the inhabitants of Dujail were evicted from their homes and relocated to a new town while the village itself was destroyed by the army. According to one report, the village was attacked by helicopters dropping napalm. Bulldozers were then sent in and turned the village into agricultural land. The failed assassination attempt was to make a lasting impression on the way Saddam conducted his presidency. Until this attack Saddam had been in the habit of making impromptu appearances around the country as part of his ongoing campaign to present himself as a populist. From this point on he would make no more impromptu appearances.

From the start of the war Saddam had tried hard to insulate the Iraqi population from the reality of what was taking place at the front. The Iraqi population was fed on a constant, and somewhat repetitive, diet of pro-Saddam propaganda. From the moment they glanced at the morning paper, through their journey to work, to the family evening gathered in front of the television, the Iraqi people was inescapably exposed to the towering presence of the “Struggler President.” They saw him posing with a rocket launcher on the front lines or paternally embracing young children; as a statesman meeting heads of state and as a military leader discussing war plans. Saddam was depicted as an efficient bureaucrat in a trendy suit and as an ordinary peasant, helping farmers with their harvest, scythe in hand.

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