Fall 2003_162

Instructor: Buthaina al Othman

Biography of Saddam Hussain

Group A: Part (4)

Read the following part of the biography, take notes, outline, and then write your summary.

12. Furthermore, Saddam wants to be recognized as an undefeatable hero. During the war with Iran he ordered his media to call him “Salladin”, the historical Arab Muslem leader, who defeated the "crusades" and "nonbelievers", in the Middle Ages, (15th century).He changed his birth date to be identified with that of Prophet Mohammed and announced repeatedly in his speeches addressing his people that he is also an orphan just like Prophet Mohammed. He announced during the Gulf war in 1991, through a speech covered by world wide media that he comes from the same family of the prophet, aiming to impress Moslems not only in his country, but all over the world. Because of this, Saddam received support from most Moslem countries, like Pakistan and Jordan , where he is considered the hero who will save Islam.

13. Saddam was not looked after when he was an infant neither from his mother who was too busy looking for a husband, nor from his father who neglected him and has never asked about him or wanted to see him. Saddam was brought up with a crisis of basic mistrust. As an adult, mistrust became one of his main characteristics. He doesn’t trust any of his assistants, which explains executions of members of his government, every now and then, for showing minimum disapproval of any of his ideas. Saddam thinks that by killing his aids who do not agree with him will help him avoid conspiracies; such as, coup d'etat or assassination attempts.In addition, changing his sleeping place every night and having a Republican Guard tastes his food for him before he eats it, is another good example of his mistrust crisis.

14. Moreover, Saddam fellowship to his hometown, Tikrit seems to substitute his fidelity to a religion.This explains the idea behind the establishment of a Republican Guards' body, which includes Iraqis who are from his hometown, Tikrit, only. Other Iraqis who come from different parts of Iraq are denied access to this private military body. Some might argue that Saddam's affiliation to Baath Party should substitute his faith to a religion.This argument may be valid before he invaded kuwait in 1990, because by this aggression he violated a major principle of Baath Party which calls for the unity of Arab nations by their free will, and not by force.By attacking and occupying an Arab country, Saddam proved that his faith in Baath ideology is fake and whatever slogans or announcements he has been stating, in the past and curently, on the issue of Arab unification were issued for mere propaganda purposes to gaind support and secure his authority.

15. As we can see, Saddam is addicted to power and his strong, agressive, and harsh personality is an essential elelment found in all dictators.As a dictator Saddam is determined to reach his targets even if it means the loss of thousands of people including women and children. Saddam can be eliminated by the world powers with little effort, but many issues might arise from such action. Some of these issues are the questions of what would happen to Iraq once Saddam is gone? Who would take over next? It could be someone even worse than Saddam? What would happen to the neighboring Arab countries? How would Iran react? I don't have straight or accurate answers to these questions now and there have always been unanswered questions in history, all the time.

References:

Mattar, Fouad. Saddam Hussain Biography: Methods of Ruling And Administrating the Conflict , 1937-1980.( Published in French and Arabic)
Al Bayaati, Hamid. the Bloody History of Saddam Al Tikriti in the British Secret Documents, (1937-1966). .( Published in Arabic )
Cloninger, Susan C. Theories of Personality: Understanding Persons 2nd ed.(1996 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. Simon and Schuster / A Viacom Company Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 0745.

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