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Sibling Rivalry, Baghdad Style
Heidi Kingstone, London
With Saddam's two oldest sons vying for power, things could get ugly in the event of the Iraqi ruler's demise
The state of Saddam Hussein's health remains as much of a mystery as Iraq's
nuclear capability. After a spate of rumors circulated in past months about
various forms of cancer that had ravaged his body, the Iraqi leader has appeared
several times in public looking as robust as ever. Nonetheless, the knowledge that eventually even the strong man of Baghdad will meet his maker is fueling
speculation in the West about who - or what - will come next.
The main contenders are Saddam's two oldest sons, Uday and Qusay. Both are in their 30s and both - their father's sons - are notorious for Borgia-like intrigue and cruelty. As the eldest son, Uday would normally be considered the natural heir. Only Saddam appears to favor Qusay. Indeed, in a surprise move in mid-May, Qusay was elected to the 18-member Iraqi Regional Command, the executive leadership of the ruling Ba'ath Party. Uday is not a member.
But given the fractious nature of the family, experts believe that post-Saddam,
Uday would be unlikely to accept his younger brother's promotion lying down.
Instead, a fight, literally to the death, may well determine which of the two will take over.
Saddam hasn't named his intended heir so far, and may not do so at all. "You have to remember that there is no retirement system in Iraq for former leaders," notes Judith Yaphe, senior research fellow at Washington's National Defense University, dryly. The Ba'athists seized power in Iraq in a coup in 1968, the year before Saddam became vice-president. This was the last of a dizzying series of coups and countercoups that followed the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958. Saddam has been sole ruler since 1979. With his takeover, he carried out a bloody purge during which 21 senior officers and Ba'ath officials were executed.
Uday was born in 1964, the oldest of five children from Saddam's marriage to his
first cousin Sajida. Saddam was in jail at the time, following an officers' coup
that had ousted a first, short-lived Ba'athist government. Qusay was born two
years later. The tension between the two brothers is longstanding, and may have
been encouraged by Saddam, Iraq-watchers believe. Many also think that Uday's
reputation for flying off the handle has made what would have been his "rightful" inheritance of power as the oldest son improbable.
One unconfirmed story: Uday was said to be driving on the main road south of
Baghdad in his sports car in the late 1980s when someone dared overtake him. In a furious rage, Uday is said to have shot and killed the driver of the other car.
"Is it true?" asks Amatzia Baram, professor of Middle East History at Haifa
University, rhetorically. "I don't know. But it is certainly something Uday is
capable of."
Tales of his rapes, beatings and gruesome murders abound. In 1995, Uday reportedly shot an uncle, Watban Tikriti, seven times in the leg. Formerly a powerful figure in the Iraqi hierarchy, Tikriti, a half-brother of Saddam, had been seen as a potential rival to Uday.
Qusay is said to be just as sadistic as his older brother but more low-key. He
certainly appears to be the chosen one, having consolidated a far more impressive power base under the aegis of his father. Little is known about Qusay, inside or outside Iraq. He is, however, known to be in charge of the Special Security Organization and the elite Republican Guard, two forces charged with protecting the regime and special programs that Saddam wants under wraps. Of Iraq's eight known intelligence services, three or four are thought to have been under Qusay's control since the early 1990s.
"If you look at who holds what kind of position," notes Yaphe, "Qusay's hand has
certainly been strengthened by gathering more and more of a hold over the special security organizations."
"Qusay for all intents and purposes seems to be the one being groomed as heir
apparent," says Ahmad al-Rikaby, chief correspondent of Radio Free Iraq, a U.S.
government-sponsored radio station which broadcasts from Prague. But there is no
guarantee that Qusay would go unchallenged. "There is certainly jealousy between
the two brothers," Rikaby notes, "and in Middle Eastern society, the older brother thinks he has the right to everything. Uday is full of hatred toward Qusay."
But though Uday has apparently had some of his most powerful positions taken from him over the years for his frequent and too blatant transgressions, he still has substantial leverage - even if it's not the extensive authority granted to Qusay.
Uday is Iraq's media czar. He owns the Babil daily paper, the weekly Rafidayn and the Al-Shabab TV station. He also acts as an unofficial minister of youth
overseeing student organizations and cultural activities, and reigns over Iraq's
Olympic Committee.
In addition, he commands Fidayee Saddam, "those willing to die for Saddam," a
particularly brutal paramilitary group. The militia was established with Saddam's permission in the mid 1990s, says Baram, a longtime Iraq-watcher. It started out as a rag-tag force of some 10,000-15,000 "bullies and country bumpkins," says Baram. They are supposed to help protect the president and Uday, and carry out much of the police's dirty work.
In late 1996, Uday was shot, gravely injured and some say partially paralyzed by
unknown assailants who are thought to have been taking revenge for one or other of Uday's killings and maimings. After the attack Saddam, who had taken the Fidayee away from Uday, gave it back to him. Uday "nagged his father until he provided an army general to train them. They're still not very good. Compared to [the elite forces] Qusay has, it's a joke," continues Baram.
Horror stories about the Fidayee are abundant. According to one, passed on by
Iraqi exile sources in March, Fidayee members took three people who had allegedly criticized Saddam out to the village square in Hila, 70 kilometers south of Baghdad, and publicly cut out their tongues.
MOST IRAQ-WATCHERS DATE the beginning of the end for Uday back to 1988, when he
killed Hanna Jajo, Saddam's most trusted food-taster and procurer of women. Jajo
had acted as the go-between for Saddam and Samira, who became his second wife and the mother of now-teenage Ali. (Saddam remains married to Sajida, despite at least two other known marriages.)
The story goes that Uday, said to be closer to his mother than to his father,
arranged a party for Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of the Egyptian president, on the
banks of the Tigris in downtown Baghdad. Across the river, on the Island of Pigs, Jajo was also entertaining. He and his rather rowdy bunch were shooting salvos in the air. Uday crossed the Tigris and asked Jajo to stop. Some time later Jajo fired again. Uday returned and clubbed Jajo to death.
Uday is also credited with having a part in the early 1996 killing of his two
brothers-in-law, Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel, who were married to Uday's
sisters Raghd and Rana. Hussein Kamel, a former head of Iraq's military industries and a key player in the country's non-conventional weapons program, had defected to Jordan in August 1995 with his brother, who had headed Saddam's personal guard. The two were lured back to Baghdad, and to their deaths, by promises of an amnesty.
Uday is thought to have been responsible for the Kamels' defection in the first
place, after threatening to have Hussein arrested. According to Baram, Uday saw
the meteoric elevation of his sister's husband as one of his father's tricks
against him, so he decided to destroy him. "Uday couldn't do anything against his father, so he harmed someone else, knowing that it would ultimately harm Saddam," he says.
Which it did. Kamel's post-defection interviews with the Western press and
subsequent debriefings about Iraq's unconventional weapons programs made the U.N. weapons inspectors realize how much Saddam had been hiding from them. A furious Saddam had his bodyguards torch some of Uday's most expensive cars as punishment.
Uday, who is notoriously greedy, flashy and corrupt, has already started staking a claim to power through parliamentary politics. He was elected to the National
Assembly last spring - although it took him some six to eight months to physically show up and take his seat in the rubber-stamp parliament.
In January, shortly before the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War, Uday
undiplomatically suggested to parliament that the map of Iraq on the emblem of the National Assembly should include the territory of Kuwait, the conquest of which had triggered the conflict itself.
In his effort to establish himself as the rightful successor, Uday is trying to
portray himself as having the interests of the Iraqi people at heart. He has
raised the issue of government discrimination against Iraqi Shi'ites in the army
and the civil service, as well as the previously taboo issue of government
corruption. Outside observers see deep irony in the fact that Uday, who is said to have made a fortune from smuggling, has become an anti-corruption crusader.
Equally suspect is Uday's talk about opening up Iraq to the 21st century, holding elections and instituting democracy. It's an obvious ploy to recruit support among young people in Iraq, where 64 percent of the population is under 25.
Ofra Bengio, senior research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern
studies at Tel Aviv University, says that it is "impossible to evaluate the kind
of support that either Uday or Qusay has, although it seems clearer that in Uday's case he is trying to build public support through the youth, the Fidayee and the parliament. He needs to, since Saddam doesn't give him any other outlet."
Whenever Saddam, who is now 64 years old, departs, the two sons are almost certain to face off against each other in the struggle for succession. And since each man has his own militias, the confrontation is unlikely to be a simple dual.
Moreover, the two feuding siblings may not be the only possible pretenders. No
other contender has surfaced in public, but that's not surprising, says Bengio.
"We couldn't know who they are," she says. "If we did, Saddam would have killed
them. But certain members of the military may have had their appetite whetted,
having waited so long" for Saddam's demise. Other academics in London pose a
potential scenario in which Saddam's family could be swept out of power altogether with his death. There is a possibility, they say, of a second-rank general from the Republican or Special Republican Guard stepping into the breach. But he would likely be a replica of Saddam, and probably hail from the same Albu Nasser tribe, a Sunni tribe about 20,000 strong from the outskirts of Tikrit.
The oft-repeated predictions that Iraq will break up in a post-Saddam era are not taken as inevitable by experts abroad. States don't dissolve easily, notes Baram. But certainly, stability may be hard to achieve after Saddam Hussein dies.
(June 18, 2001)
Middle East
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