Chom, Fred, RE: Saddam
Here's a short excerpt from an interview with a man who knows Saddam quite well:
At times it seemed the U.S. was giving Saddam mixed signals in the 1980s. Tell us the story of Saddam's meeting with a consultant and how Saddam was trying to understand the U.S. What does it reveal about his perceptions of America.
Saddam Hussein is a learner. He used to read a great deal and he used to listen to people a great deal. He never told them when he was taking something away from what they were saying. But he did, and in this case, he summoned a Lebanese journalist to talk to him about the workings of the U.S. governmental system--checks and balances, if you wish. And the Lebanese journalist was taken aback by his question--'explain to me the system of checks and balances of the United States.' He tried his best to explain it to him. And the meeting went on for over an hour. And Saddam listened very attentively. At the end of it he said, 'if power is divided in America, who do we deal with then? And the man, afraid like everybody who sees Saddam, looked at him and said, 'Mr. President, I don't think you have any choice. You have to deal with the executive branch.' At which point, Saddam supposedly shook his head from side to side and he said, 'but they lie to me all the time.' This is an example of the misgivings Saddam Hussein had about the United States.
There was a love-hate relationship between the two. He loved American technology, Saddam is enamored with technology anyway. And he decided very early in his career that certain types of technology could only be supplied by the United States of America. So in a way he related to the United States, he had affection for the United States and what the United States could provide. Simultaneously he never trusted them politically. He told many journalists who saw him that America's policy towards the Middle East is shortsighted. Because there are more Arabs than Israelis. The Arabs were wealthier, and America should throw its lot with the Arabs. This is where Saddam Hussein, the uneducated man, comes into play. Because a really savvy politician would know better, would know that the United States could not change its policy towards the Middle East. But Saddam didn't know that. He's still bright, but there are holes in his education which show when people talk to him.
After the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam is trying to figure out what the U.S. policy is, or, how there seemed to be different policies--from the Congress and from the executive branch. What was Saddam's view of the box he was in and what was going on?
We don't know how much money Saddam Hussein owed after the war with Iran ended. Estimates ranged between $65 billion and $100 billion. It was a great deal of money. He told the Iraqi people that he won the war. And the Iraqi people wanted the fruits of victory and he couldn't deliver. He counted on the Arab countries--Saudi Arabia and Kuwait--to help him out. They didn't help him out. And suddenly on top of that, there was a change in U.S. policy. Instead of supporting him, providing him with greater credit, there was criticism about his human rights policies which were always atrocious, but it was more vociferous than it was before. They were talking about supporting the Kurds. There was talk about investigating what had happened in the past.
All of a sudden the custom and excise people throughout Europe became extra clever and were discovering shipments of all types of things to Iraq--the bits for the supergun, the triggers. Superguns were discovered all over the place as a matter of fact in about five different countries.
And Saddam felt beleaguered. He didn't feel this was accidental. He felt that the West knew that he was weak, and this was an opportunity to weaken him further or get rid of him. He told this to Yasser Arafat; he told him there is a conspiracy against Iraq and he told this to Mubarak. He believed in the conspiracy theory, so in his own mind what he was fighting was a conspiracy.
The ideal thing for Saddam to do, and what I personally believe he wanted to do, was to go to war with Israel, briefly, for about a week, two weeks. Get pounded, but embarrass the rest of Arab states into giving him loads of money to tide him over this financial problem. All of a sudden Kuwait, as far as Saddam is concerned, gets in the way. How did Kuwait get in the way? Saddam's only income was from oil and Kuwait was pumping over its OPEC quota and the price of oil was collapsing. And every time the price of oil fell by one dollar, Iraq lost a billion dollars in income. And Saddam decided Kuwait couldn't possibly be doing this on its own. No way. Kuwait didn't need the money. Its own income was enough if it had investment in the West which was producing income. Why is Kuwait doing this?
And because of his previous involvement in 1963 when Kuwait was used as a post by the CIA to help the Ba'ath Party overthrow Kassem, Saddam decided Kuwait is being used again to change the Iraqi government. This time against me, last time I was on the other side. This time they are using it against me. And instead of directing his efforts into starting a war with Israel, he invaded Kuwait. And once again, like all intelligent people without education, when they make a mistake, they make them really big.
Did he expect the U.S. to respond?
No, he did not expect the United States to respond to his invasion of Kuwait the way it did. He personally analyzed the situation, had that famous meeting with American ambassador April Glaspie in Baghdad. And he believed the United States gave him a green light to occupy Kuwait. Well, that shows Saddam's lack of education because there was no way the United States was going to allow Saddam Hussein to control the flow and price of oil in the Middle East. Impossible. And there is evidence that people within his inner circle told him not to do it and he did it. He thought he would bargain.
This is where, again, you see Saddam for what he is. Saddam is making an A- bomb, but Saddam comes from the small village of Al Awja. When you talk about Saddam being schizophrenic or having a split personality, it is not necessarily physiological, it is sociological. One foot is in the seventeen century in Al Awja, and the other foot is in the twentieth century making an A-bomb. He invaded Kuwait and thought, 'good I have Kuwait, I'm going to bargain with the United States.' Well the United States made its position clear. There is no bargaining about the withdrawal from Kuwait, fella, you get out of Kuwait. No conditions. No rewards. Nothing. That he couldn't understand. And he was caught.
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Why not read the following interview in its entirety and then I would be happy to discuss the important issue of what might be the most effective means of dealing with Saddam Hussein.
pbs.org |
