| Sadistic tales of Saddam’s sons | |||||||||||
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| By Sharon Waxman THE WASHINGTON POST | |||||
| July 23 — Someday in the not too distant future, Iraqi parents will tuck their children into bed at night and, like Scheherazade, tell them tales of Uday and Qusay, the notorious sons of Saddam. | |||||
THIS IS HOW people talk about them even now.
Uday, 39, was the loud, preening one. Qusay, 37, was the quiet, calculating one. Both were pampered sons of a murderous tyrant, handed the power to inflict pain and demand pleasure at will from an early age. What could anyone expect? They learned to abuse their power with pathological glee and unbridled egotism.
Wouldn’t anybody?
Here’s a small example: When Uday built yet another massive palace in the middle of Baghdad, he was dissatisfied with the noise of fast-moving traffic passing beside the compound. So he had a single-lane overland bridge built nearby to divert the cars and slow them down. It created traffic jams in the city, but at least his yard was quiet.
Both brothers had many palaces, exotic pets, women, jewelry and, in Uday’s case, hundreds and hundreds of cars. Both had made untold millions trafficking in contraband under U.N. sanctions. Remember Qusay and his goons pulling up in front of the Iraqi central bank and withdrawing a billion dollars hours before the U.S. bombing began? Biggest bank heist in world history? That’s the kind of thing we’re talking about.
The city of Baghdad cowered in the shadow of Hussein’s sons, most especially Uday. People knew, more or less, how to avoid Saddam Hussein’s wrath. But there was no predicting the fits of pique that might seize the filial bogeyman. |
Saddam Hussein had good reason for his paranoia. People were trying to kill him all the time. If he had food tasters and a special chef who traveled with him, it was because there were others trying to poison him. His bloodthirsty behavior usually had a purpose behind it, to terrorize his people into submission, and to intimidate his enemies.
No such logic could explain the behavior of Uday Saddam Hussein. Indeed, few in history can top him for pathological jealousy. Perhaps psychologists will study him in the future and find a name for Uday’s particular brand of irrationality: “Uday-pensation,” a very advanced form of penis envy.
Once Uday and his friends were at the Jadriyah hunting club in Baghdad, where the popular singer Kathem Saher was performing. Women had flocked around the handsome crooner’s table, asking for autographs.
Uday was enraged. He ordered Saher over to his table and said he wanted an autograph, too. Then he handed the singer his shoe, offering him a terrifying dilemma — should he insult Uday by signing the lowly thing, or insult Uday by not signing it? The singer signed the shoe. Then he left the club and the country immediately, knowing he’d be dead if Uday ever saw him again.
As the head of Iraq’s Olympic committee, Uday was a sports buff. His method of motivating athletes was to threaten them with torture if they lost. But sometimes he tortured them if they won, too, if he thought a player was getting more attention from the fans than he.
He tortured star members of the soccer team. He tortured members of the Olympic wrestling team. Sometimes he just beat them and threw them in a cell for several days. Other times he used one of his favorite medieval methods, called falaqa, hanging the victim upside down and beating him mercilessly on the soles of the feet. Uday used to like to torture his friends — who needed enemies, really? — for little infractions. If you were late for a meeting, for example, you might get beaten. He’d beat the butler for having body odor. He’d beat the maid for giggling out of turn. He’d beat an official of the radio and television authority if there were grammatical mistakes made on the air.
Doesn’t anyone see a television movie in this?
FALLING OUT OF FAVOR Uday liked television. He was in charge of the national media, which meant he controlled the airwaves. A movie buff, he would steal the satellite signal for films aimed at other countries, and broadcast first-run Hollywood movies free on Iraqi television. People in Baghdad have seen “Lord of the Rings” and “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.” They’ve seen “The Matrix.” They missed “Matrix Reloaded” because Uday was busy running from the American invasion.
Here was Uday’s problem: Daddy didn’t love him enough. Uday was too unstable even for Saddam Hussein (this is saying something), and the dictator had long before elevated the younger son to positions of real responsibility, naming Qusay head of the Republican Guard and putting him in charge of military intelligence and the special security forces. Qusay was a murderer you could count on.
Uday, on the other hand, only got to control the state media, youth culture and sports. His title as head of the Fedayeen Saddam was a nominal one. Apparently, it wasn’t enough.
In 1996, Uday’s enemies (former friends, perhaps) finally had had enough of his bullying behavior. Assailants attacked him in his car in the chic Mansour district, shooting into his entourage and nearly killing him. The attack left Uday with permanent damage, provoking a stroke and afflicting him with frequent seizures. Walking became difficult. Sex, according to the local gossip, became impossible.
Guess what? It made Uday even more sadistic. Doctors in Baghdad tell of going to Uday’s palaces to pick up unconscious women.
Uday would go out to the city’s private clubs and “invite” a group of girls back to his house. He’d get them drunk, and drug their drinks. But then when he couldn’t perform sexually, he’d beat them. Doctors would be called to remove the victims.
Was it a problem of education? The boys were spoiled, more than a bit. They weren’t shown much discipline as children. They got used to having their way. It’s the kind of thing that happens when Daddy is a dictator busy maintaining a regime of terror during the day, and supervising the interior decoration of an endless succession of palaces in his free time.
In elementary school, every week there would be a ceremony to honor the best student of the week. Guess what: It was always Uday! In high school it was not unusual for Uday to show up at Saddam’s alma mater, Kharkh High School, wearing a bandoleer filled with live ammunition. Once, when he broke his leg, his class had to move to a classroom on a lower floor to accommodate him.
It was a small step from there to having a bridge built to keep the traffic noise near his yard to a minimum. (Another bridge near the presidential compound, the 14th of July Bridge, was reserved for Uday’s use alone.) But all that is in the past. As wild, joyous gunfire erupted through the streets of Baghdad last night, leading many residents to celebrate the brothers’ demise from the safety of their bedrooms, it seemed that the legend of Hussein’s sons would surely outlive them.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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