Master Of His Universe

By Otto Friedrich

Nebuchadnezzar was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen . . .

-- The Book of Daniel 4: 33

What kind of a man would cold-bloodedly gobble up a neighboring country? What kind of a man would try to assassinate a Prime Minister? What kind of a man gasses undefended villages or executes his closest colleagues? What kind of a man, in short, is Iraq's President-for-Life Saddam Hussein?

The heir, it would seem, of the fierce and bloodthirsty Mesopotamian kings who once ruled the civilized world. Many of those ancient potentates met terrible ends -- when they made the mistake of relaxing their grip for an instant. Saddam is determined not to repeat their fate.

When Israeli intelligence agents gave an anonymous sample of Saddam's handwriting to a leading graphologist recently, the analyst said the writer suffered from severe megalomania with symptoms of paranoia. Graphology is even less of a science than long-distance psychiatry, but there is other evidence besides the loops and whorls of script. Saddam had himself photographed not long ago in a replica of the war chariot of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king whom Saddam apparently reveres as his hero. Despite a bout of insanity, which is recounted in The Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar made his name in history by destroying Jerusalem in 587 B.C. and driving its inhabitants into 70 years of captivity. It is fair warning.

Like those forebears, Saddam is by no means crazy. Rather, he is a man willing to do almost anything to get what he wants -- and he wants to dominate the Middle East much as Nebuchadnezzar once did. "He is an extremely shrewd, cold-blooded, clever thug," says a senior British diplomat who has dealt with him. "Human life means nothing to him." He plays the complex game of Middle East politics by the bareknuckle rules of the region. Says another diplomat: "He does what he thinks is expedient. He is not driven by ideology or whim. He coldly calculates every move. He is simply a brutal and very clever pragmatist." Adds TIME correspondent Dan Goodgame: "On meeting him, a visitor is first struck by his eyes, crackling with alertness and at the same time cold and remorseless as snake eyes on the sides of dice. They are the eyes of a killer."

The origins of Saddam's killer instinct go back to his roots in Tikrit, 100 miles north of Baghdad. Born in 1937 the son of peasants, he was orphaned at the age of nine months and raised by an uncle, an army officer named Khairallah Talfah, who hated Britain's domination of Iraq's puppet monarchy. At his knee, the boy learned the ways of intrigue and sneak attack, until Talfah joined in an abortive anti-British coup in 1941 and was imprisoned. Saddam did not attend school until the age of nine and later, when he applied for admission to the elite Baghdad Military Academy, he was rejected for poor grades. It was a devastating blow, instilling, say Israeli analysts, an obsession with the use of military force. Though Saddam now likes to parade around in self-designed military uniforms, it was only after he came to power that he could make himself a full general.

The nearest he ever got to combat was assassination. As a student, he had joined the Baath Party, an underground anti-Western, pan-Arab socialist movement. The party put him on a team assigned to murder Iraq's military ruler, Abdul Karim Kassem. Saddam and his confederates sprayed Kassem's station wagon with machine-gun fire as it sped through downtown Baghdad, but they missed their target. Although bodyguards killed several of the assailants, Saddam escaped with a bullet in his left leg. In the glorified words of his own hagiography -- the truth is less dramatic -- he carved out the bullet himself with a razor dipped in iodine, then disguised himself as a Bedouin tribesman, swam across the Tigris River, stole a donkey and fled across the desert to Syria. He was captured and jailed, but supposedly word of his adventures reached Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was then a charismatic exponent of pan-Arabism. Nasser got Saddam transferred to Cairo, and became another hero.

At 25, Saddam began studying law, but his heart was in other things. According to one anecdote, Saddam was exasperated when his Cairo classmates sat around in cafes and debated the fine points of local politics. "Why argue?" Saddam shouted. "Why don't you just take out a gun and shoot him?"

$ Saddam returned to Baghdad in 1963 and started organizing a militia for the Baath Party, which finally succeeded in grabbing power permanently in 1968. Under the nominal leadership of General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, the man who held the real control was his relative Saddam Hussein. Keeping things in the family, Saddam married another relative, Sajida Talfah, the daughter of the officer who had raised him.

Al-Bakr retired in 1979, and that left Saddam completely in charge. He celebrated by ordering the execution of 21 Cabinet members, including one of his closest comrades, on dubious charges of treason. "He who is closest to me is farthest from me when he does wrong," said Saddam.

According to a British diplomat, on other occasions Saddam took a band of Cabinet ministers and aides down to Baghdad's central prison to serve as the firing squad for a number of political prisoners. "It was to ensure loyalty through common guilt," says the British official. It also reminds his colleagues what their own destiny might be. Amnesty International has estimated the number of executions in Iraq at hundreds a year, and the secret police are everywhere. Torture is commonplace. It is a crime to own a typewriter without police permission. It is death to speak against the "Father-Leader." Says a Western official: "Everyone knows that no one is safe."

Yet in 1980 Saddam nearly brought his regime to ruin when he attacked Iran. He had once given refuge to the Ayatullah Khomeini, then, under pressure from the Shah, expelled him. Not only did Saddam want disputed territory, but he was also provoked when Khomeini began calling for the overthrow of Saddam's "blasphemous" regime. He is a Sunni Muslim, though most Iraqis belong to the rival Shi'ite branch, as did Khomeini. Saddam responded by invading, confident that his powerful, Soviet-equipped army could easily smash the Ayatullah's ragtag militia, but the Iranians fought back. When the going got especially rough, Saddam turned to poison gas, a horror weapon outlawed after World War I.

Not so much popular as feared at home, he is equally ruthless in preserving his power. He is omnipresent, his face, sometimes several feet high, adorning every city block. His picture hangs in every office, every shop, even most private homes, lest the dreaded secret police pay a call. Those who don't conform pay. A senior general once warned him, according to an Iraqi informant, that an attack he had ordered would lead to very high casualties. Saddam invited the general into the next room to discuss the matter. After the door closed behind them, a shot rang out. Saddam returned alone, stuffing his pistol into his holster.

While fighting the Iranians, Saddam was also waging war against the rebellious Kurds, who make up about 19% of Iraq's population. There too he relied on poison gas, not against invading soldiers but against civilians, women and children. It took eight years for the gulf war to end in a stalemate, with a loss of an estimated 75,000 to 150,000 Iraqi lives and the country's economy in ruins. To rebuild from the wreckage, Saddam needed more oil revenues, and when Kuwait interfered with his plans, he reached -- as ever -- for his pistol.

What distinguishes Saddam from the rulers of other lands is that he is not content merely to "be" President. He has a vision -- some would say a delusion -- of grandeur for himself and for Iraq, but the only ways he knows to pursue the dream are to kill and bully and take.

With reporting by Dan Goodgame/Washington and William Mader/London