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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (109186)	8/1/2003 2:59:32 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Dictatorship survivability is not about "experience". If it were, long lived dictators would create long lived dynsasties all the time NO.. It's about controlling the "tools" that form one's powerbase, and Qusai controlled all of those, including the Special Republican Guard and Iraqi intelligence service. No other rival controlled those forces, and anyone who had opposed his succession to power, would have been immediately killed by these "tools". It is fairly well known that Saddam's two sons were hated more than Saddam. For dictators, that's a problem. I guess you never caught the tape of Saddam's first Baathist party meeting where he had any potential rivals denounced as traitors and escorted out to be shot... by those party members who had not been denounced.. But there's no doubt that Saddam used his sons as enforcers. But I don't believe anyone was under the illusion that either of them were acting without his sanction, permission, and/or approval. Hawk